


not wizard slash

by aeemmmoor



Series: Dolores Maryam and an absurd amount of children. [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: But I'm Lazy So I Didn't Want To Tag All Of Them, F/M, High School AU, Humanstuck, If You Are Then Welcome Back To The Closet, Literally Every Character Is Mentioned At Some Point, M/M, Slow Burn, Thinly Veiled Allusions To Rosemary and Vriskan, We Hope You're Not Gay, Welcome To Mississippi, funny i hope, veeeeeery slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-01-30 05:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12646800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeemmmoor/pseuds/aeemmmoor
Summary: The High School AU Davekat fic from Mississippi or alternatively Hell.





	1. Chapter 1: Karkat Vantas

**Author's Note:**

> I rewrote this first chapter a lot. I tend to overcomplicate my backstories and prose, so I had to push myself a bit in order to make this monstrosity readable. If anyone is interested in reading my first draft for this chapter, I'll put it up with absolutely no tags and no explanation for shits and giggles. Laugh at my ineptitude. Without further ado, have fun reading this shit.

The light from your phone is starting to irritate your eyes, you think. You’re not positive, but it might be a side effect of being an insomniac. Part-time imsoniac. Either way, you feel like you just got fucked by the grim reaper, by which you mean you are two seconds away from falling over dead. Noises are coming from the floor below, and your head is aching like a motherfucker, crushing your brain against your skull. Maryams are already up, you note, hard at work being functioning humans, and here the fuck you are. Your eyes adjust blearily to the light seeping through your window. It feels like you’re being attacked. You knit your brows in confusion at the window, swearing that the white linen drapes hanging there don’t belong to you. Don’t you have blackout curtains?

 

Wait. You grin at the window. This is Kankri’s room. Which means Kankri isn’t here. Which means he’s back in NY torturing his professor or something. 

 

Your day has increased exponentially. You’ve been waiting for him to return to his natural habitat of shithole academia since he came back and he’s finally fucking gone. 

 

Time to wreck all of his personal possessions. You blow your nose on the sheets.

 

Someone raps her nails on the door. “Karkat. Breakfast is starting, and if your twink ass isn’t down there before it’s done I am eating your sausage.” Porrim’s still here though. Unfortunately. God, you are too tired for this shit. She knocks on your door sharply for about two more milliseconds and goes directly to rattling the doorknob. You stare at the door and try to figure out what it wants. Porrim starts again, colder this time.“Karkat. Twink ass. In the kitchen. Right the fuck now.” You go to open the door. Porrim’s clenched fist is inches away from your face, going in for another knock. You make an alarmed noise.

 

Your brain is still full of fuzz, but you attempt to talk anyway. “Porrim, can’t you just hold your fucking horses it’s so fucking early just…” You yawn. “Fucking. Shit.”

 

“Sick burn.” she mocks. Your higher functions are less than exemplary in the mornings. “You still need to get dressed though. I wasn’t kidding about eating your sausage.”

 

“Bullshit. You’ve been vegetarian for more than a decade.”

 

“Karkat, I make good on my threats.” She cocks a stenciled eyebrow threateningly, smiling with all her teeth to let you know she’s kidding. You wrinkle your nose at her and retreat back into your room to get some clothes. Porrim shakes her head at you as you come down to eat.

“You look like shit, Karkat.” she says brightly at her frying pan. You wince. She flips an egg white with a satisfying hiss and presses it down with her spatula until it starts making sad wheezing noises.

 

“Tactful as ever, Porrim.” Kanaya puts in. Her onion omelet is half-finished, seemingly abandoned, as she unsuccessfully tries to prop her enormous book up on the saltshaker. It drops face-first on her plate, and she sits there a while, looking at it in dismay. This is a frequent problem in your house. Nothing seems to be able to hold up the kind of books that Kanaya likes to read. “Good morning Karkat.” You blurrily formulate a greeting. She turns her head to glance at you, trying to rub her eyes without messing up her makeup. Which she somehow has on at asscrack-of-dawn o’ clock. Go figure. Her eyes rest on your ancient grey socks. She raises her eyebrows.

 

“What?” You snap.

 

“Nothing.” her attention returns to her omelet, and you watch her close the book. Faintly curious, you glance over at the cover.

 

“Why are you reading…” you tilt your head in order to read the title, “Oh my god. You are reading an honest to god Grimoire. It even fucking says Grimoire on the cover. Kanaya, what the shit--”

 

“On recommendation from a friend,” she says sharply. You decide not to pry, and instead slouch into one of the mismatched wooden chairs arranged around the round breakfast table and pick at your eggs. Porrim lowers her ample hips into another chair next to you and crosses her ankles.

 

“You have your lunch,” She prods, stabbing her egg white savagely. You nod. “And your phone’s charged.” You make a noncommittal noise. “And you’re sure there wasn’t any huge assignment over Thanksgiving break.” You blink, annoyed.

 

“Porrim, even if there was, I wouldn’t have done it.” 

 

Someone descends the stairwell. You turn towards her when you see that it’s Dolores. The mood shifts immediately and drastically, and your conversation screeches to a halt. Soundlessly, she enters the room, her hands clasped and her shoulders draped with a scarf. When she leans down to kiss your head, her crucifix dangles in your face, putting you in the uncomfortable position of having the lamb of god repeatedly bopping your nose. Kanaya gets up to get her a cup of coffee and Dolores thanks her, settling into the oddly majestic wicker porch chair at the end of the table. She folds her hands together and closes her eyes. Just as you have for all your life, you watch her lips move silently with polite disinterest and take another bite of sausage. She crosses herself, and you put your fork in the dishwasher in silence. Dolores sighs audibly as you scrape your plate into the trash without finishing it. You put your dishes in the sink and walk onto the porch, closing the door quietly. Your backpack hangs limply from your shoulders, as of now free of textbooks. You mouth a goodbye to your sisters, not willing to disturb the nigh instantaneous reverent silence that seems to accompany Dolores in most of her endeavors.

 

The dawn is creeping over the horizon, but the impressive nature of the sunrise is somewhat diminished by the light drizzle smattering your hair with tiny droplets. You look up at the encroaching raindrops, and one smacks directly on your forehead, right where you rubbed away the smudges of Dolores’ lipstick. You scowl at the sky. Balancing on the tiny curb between the road and the scrubby lawns-and-houses of low-class suburbia, you scan your periphery with a grizzled disdain somewhat disproportionate to the situation. You trudge quietly through dead brown lots. A couple are yelling at each other across the street. Something ceramic breaks. You spit on the earth in a subtle show of solidarity. Thank god you wore the turtleneck. It is as cold as the icy fucking baby toes of Satan. The only problem with the turtleneck you’ve encountered so far is that everybody in this town seems to think you’re hiding something, ie. self-harm scars, bruises, an eating disorder, boobs, etc. 

 

It pisses you off. You put all this work into being unremarkable and it backfires like a bitch. They should just leave you alone. You hate them. You hate them all. 

 

You stare at your feet trying to convince yourself of this for a few minutes.

 

They don’t realize that just because you don’t talk to anyone and haven't gone to a school dance since never doesn’t mean you’re not happy. You are extremely happy and very alone. And happy. Happy alone. But not, like, exuberant. Just very, very, un-depressed. 

 

It wasn’t always like this. You had a ton of friends around five years ago, before you switched schools. Well, ‘friend’ is actually the wrong word for it. More like intimate acquaintances. People you didn’t actually like, but had known for so long that you were friends by default. All of them go to different schools now. You didn’t, obviously. You’re just sort of stuck now. It’s like that limbo when you start a new school and you don’t really know anybody yet, except you’ve been that way for five years. Somewhere along that line, you started actively avoiding relationships and people. Sort of like when you start losing so bad that you start  _ trying _ to lose in a futile attempt to make yourself feel better about your imminent fate. Anyway.

 

You’re still walking. People are starting to sluggishly creep from their houses, eyeing you suspiciously. Assholes. You would flip a few people off, but you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. Also, you’re pretty sure someone would straight up tackle you. There are certain times when being an utterly pathetic five-foot-zero angry munchkin comes in handy, and any time you want to look threatening is not one of those times. You could pull out your phone and try to look absorbed, but your internet is slow as fuck when you’re walking to school. So you just walk. As the white noise emanating from a few hundred gregarious high schoolers starts to seep into the empty corners of your psyche, you find the time to look up and realize that you are right outside the school. You plop down on the steps and hook up to the Wifi coming from the nursing home in the back of the gym remorselessly. Someone waves at you. You ignore them. You read a webcomic absently and find it to be utter garbage. You… really don’t have time for this.

 

“Hi. Um. Shit. Is there a registration office?” You glance over your phone to briefly glimpse an utterly filthy pair of red converse that you suppose belong to a student. You nod sleepily and jab your thumb in the general direction of two buildings.

 

“Both of them have registration offices. Take the left. The secretary in the right wing office is a salty bitch.”

 

“Not a morning person?”

 

“Oh, who  _ fucking  _ is?” You snap. 

 

An awkward silence ensues. 

 

Ugh, shit. You wince in a sudden and overwhelming stab of regret. You can almost hear Kanaya’s unsolicited input-- _ Karkat, that was unforgivably rude-- _ but when you look up, the guy’s already brushing past you. You seriously hope he doesn’t go to Mrs. Medigo’s office by accident. That woman has some fucking issues that really need to be addressed in a safe and wholesome setting. You hear a muffled curse as he trips over your bag and shatters your introspection. He’s apologizing profusely. You sigh and rub your temples, wondering how his two functioning brain cells manage to string words together coherently.

 

You make it to your homeroom with considerable difficulty, somehow managing to wade through the throng of students at the front of the room exchanging pleasantries and collapse in the chair at the absolute farthest corner from the door. Just like an anime character, yes, you are aware. You pull a book out of your bag and try not to look approachable. The bell rings. You ignore it. Everyone slowly moves to their seats, what little energy they had exhausted by socializing. Mrs. Marsh starts attendance. Your name is very far down on the list, so you turn your head to look out the window and into the hall. Someone screeches around the corner and you jump a little in your seat, watching the incoming reddish blur of person hurtle in the direction of your room. A few people turn their heads, and Mrs. Marsh groans audibly. You sympathize with her deeply. The blur is rapidly approaching, and you stare at it somewhat vacantly as it rushes past your window. It mutters a cuss word and slams into the door at about fifty mph, almost crashing into the desk just inside the classroom. He, for you feel pretty comfortable at this point that this is, in fact, a he, skids to a halt on the linoleum, making an earsplitting squeak that lasts an extremely awkward five seconds. It is hilarious and painful at the same time. 

 

“Am I late.”

 

“What’s your last name?” she drawls.

 

“Strider.” She raises an eyebrow, clearly skeptical.

 

“You’re not late. Yet. Take your seat.” He takes a seat in the front, like an asshole. You turn away to pull out your book again. You’re right in the middle of the part where the two main protagonists are fucking in the woods and you want to make sure you highlight  _ every  _ anatomical inaccuracy in the ensuing lovemaking. You tap your pen bitterly on the spine of the book.

 

Not like you’ve had any experience.

 

You sit like that for a while, making unimpressed noises whenever you have to read the word ‘shudder’. After a few more comically poorly-written attempts to generate emotion, you notice a subtle noise coming from the front of the room. Tapping. God, you fucking hate tapping. Your head shoots up comically. After a few embarrassingly birdlike swivels of your head, you finally locate the origin of the noise. It’s him. He has earbuds in and is apparently really into whatever he’s listening to because his foot is tapping almost as fast as same day amazon delivery in San Antonio. 

 

His foot. 

 

His red-converse-clad foot. 

 

Figures. That’s probably why he was very nearly late. You bet he went to the demoness’ office. Like an idiot.

 

His foot-tapping ceases, presumably a result of a lapse in the song. One of his shoelaces is untied, and he looks a bit ratty in general what with the faded t-shirt and the un-factory-ripped jeans with the cuffs a good two inches above where they should be. His ankles are concerningly bony. You think if he kicked you he might poke your eye out with his lateral malleolus. When Marsh calls him his head snaps up and his left earbud pops out. He doesn’t seem to notice. You’re working up the courage to tell him to quit tapping his fucking foot when Marsh calls you, somehow fucking butchering the last fucking syllable even though it’s pronounced exactly how it looks and she’s known you for four fucking years. You glare at her, moments away from landing a suspension for improper conduct. He not-so-subtly turns to look at you, along with a few other people. Oh. You almost forgot about him. “Here.” 

 

He looks at you for a while longer and you feel a hint of irritation prickle at the back of your head. Is he waiting for you to do a trick? You spare him a fleeting glance and take note of the sunglasses. Indoors. In November. Your flicker of anger turns into more of a simmering rage. Fuck this. You snap your head away. As the bell rings and you pick up your bags to leave for class, you walk out a bit faster than normal. You just remembered you have to do something and you’re not looking forward to it.

 

You catch her just as she’s going out, presumably for coffee. The school counselor is a friendly looking, slightly plump woman with strawberry blonde hair that you suspect would poof out if not for her veritable plethora of assorted hair coverings, most of them pink. She’s been here for twenty years and is universally regarded as ‘The best counselor ever’. You tap her on the shoulder to get her attention.

 

“Good morning, Karkat. What can I do for you?” She has a thick southern accent and a soft voice that’s heart-achingly sweet in the best of times and heart-achingly sweet in the worst of times. She makes you feel guilty. 

 

“Mr. Slick-- Sorry. I mean maintenance, says that you told them to alert you of any suspicious residue in the school bathroom? They found something.” She gasps.

 

“Oh no! Darn, where did I put my drug PSA?” She rummages through an enormous green tote bag, pulling out various items and handing them, unprompted, to you to hold. “It’s so  _ sad, _ Karkat. Imagine, all of the children in the world whose lives will never be the same because of these awful  _ drugs? _ ” she says animatedly. Ms. Paint is a great counselor, but it’s common knowledge that she has one true crusade. Hell, she even got a limited medical degree  _ specifically _ to study the effects of drugs on the brain. She is nothing if not dedicated. Unfortunately, no one takes her seriously.

 

“Oh. They wanted you to know something else too.” She looks up.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“School Maintenance would like to inform you that the brownies you left at his office were delicious, but they would taste even better if you dropped by to share them.” She stares at you for a while and slowly goes pink.

 

“O-oh.” You grin, and the muscles in your face twinge.

 

“Bye, Ms. Paint.”

 

“Oh! Goodbye, Karkat. And--” she puts a hand on your shoulder and regards you fondly. “If you need to talk about anything at all, come see me.” You sigh. Always the sales pitch. You nod, and walk to your class. You think that Mr. Slick has a date in his future. You smile again. That fucker  _ so _ owes you one. 


	2. Chapter 2: Dave Strider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey so switching perspectives is a thing that's happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh! my tumblr is catintheunderground! yay shameless self-promotion!

This sucks. Walking to school sucks. You’re poor as fuck, that didn’t change when you moved to Mississippi, but you never actually had to walk two miles to school because you actually could not afford bus fare. You feel like you’re in a third world country and also it’s hella cold. You’re wearing a t-shirt and jeans in November, like an idiot, and very seriously regretting your life decisions. Your hands feel numb as you clasp them on the back of your neck in an attempt to warm them, and as you exhale you can see just a hint of your own breath. You miss John. Jade too. Even Rose, but that one’s a stretch. You’ll never really escape her anyway, considering she’s your sister. Legally your stepsister. God, it’s all batshit with the Strilondes. You should have a reality TV show; like keeping up with the assholes or something. Kardashians got nothing on you, you’re single-handedly keeping the entire practice of therapy afloat out of sheer emotional incompetency. You reach for your phone and pull out a pocket knife instead. Flick blade out. Flick blade in. Repeat until you can deal.

You can’t. 

It’s too fucking cold.

You put it back in your pocket and continue walking. You try to talk to a few people on the way, but the dialogue isn’t exactly thrilling, and as soon as someone asks you for a cigarette you decide to take a break from social interaction. You almost told them that you knew a place that didn’t ID, (Thanks, Roxy’s ex-girlfriend) but thought better of it. Your feet move a little faster; you should just get to school. Once you get there, everyone will be telling you what to do and you won’t have to focus on this. The steps to what looks like the main building sit about four feet away from where you stand. Shit. Okay. This is just like ninth grade when you switched schools. What did you need to do then? Something about orientations and. Registration. You need to find a registration office. You scan the building. Nothing sticks out to you. As you’re about to stroll right in and pray some fucker takes pity on you and tells you where to put your ass, someone a few feet away mumbles something at you. Or you thought it was at you. You whip around and see a boy about your age sitting on the steps, very obviously engrossed in something he was… reading? On his phone, so you couldn’t be sure. Just as you start to doubt he spoke at all, his mouth opens again and he mumbles something else, almost whispering. “Shit, Jonathan. Are you just going to stand there like a tool?” You blink at him for a minute before realizing he’s talking to his phone. He obviously hasn’t noticed you. You walk closer and stare down at the unruly black mop curling over his forehead as he squints at what he’s reading.

“Hi. Um. Shit. Is there a registration office?” You cringe a bit. You wait for him to look up and tell you to go fuck yourself, but the bite doesn’t come. He looks up, but only at your shoes, his eyes dead and bored. He looks like a zombie. You don’t even think he realized he was talking to himself. After blearily rubbing his eyes a couple times, digging his fingers rather painfully into his eye sockets, (which makes you wince,) he jabs his thumb to a couple low buildings on the left.

“Both of them have registration offices. Take the left. The secretary in the right wing office is a bitch.” Jesus, who pissed in this guy’s cornflakes?

“Not a morning person?” You say. Who knows, maybe you’ll have a productive conversation.

“Who fucking is.” he spits. Well. That was unprompted. In some alternate universe where the guy wasn’t tiny and scowling at his phone you might have been pissed off. But here it’s more faintly amusing than it is irritating. You turn on your heel and make your way toward the building, and you immediately step directly into a backpack. Presumably his. He lets out an irritated noise somewhere between a sigh and a ‘tsk’. You have a terrible feeling you’re going to be late.You break into a run on your way to the office, skittering through the door with a crash. Too late you realize you entered the wrong office. You freeze, wondering if it’s still okay to run back out. The tiny Japanese secretary seated at the front desk fixes you with a glare as cold as ice. It is definitely not still fucking okay.

“Name.” she says flatly. Her tone is heavily accented.

“Dave Strider.” she lazily flips through some folders, and you get the feeling she’s just doing it to take up as much of your time as possible. She extracts a paper from one of the manila folders neatly and slides it across the table the way secretaries do in movies. It’s a form. She hands you a pen, presumably to fill out said form. As you bend over the paper, she leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her wine-colored blouse. You glance up nervously. She just stares, her black eyes boring into you accusingly. You fill out the form as quickly as possible. She snatches the pen back from you and hands you a name tag. You grab it like it’s a welfare check and bolt out of the room in record time. You close the door behind you firmly, make a quick promise to yourself to never enter that office again, and stick the nametag on your shirt in the least conspicuous place you can think of. Just in time to hear a bell. That cannot be good.

You run. The doors to the hall slam behind you with a bang, and you focus very hard on not slipping as you scamper to your homeroom. You will not be late for class on the first day. You slam into the door with a sound like a shot and barely manage to screech to a halt to avoid crashing into a desk like a klutzy anime character. You look up and realize that the whole class is already seated. “Am I late.”

The teacher, sitting at the front desk, glances at you and then back to her attendance sheet. “What’s your last name?”

“Strider.” She raises a skeptical eyebrow. You fix her with an even glare, but you’re not sure she can tell what you’re doing since you still have your shades on.

“Not yet. Take your seat.” You exhale and slump into the nearest desk. Everyone is staring at you. Everyone is staring at you and this is really an uncomfortable chair, what the fuck? You fidget, your hands lacing and unlacing on your desk. Would it be weird to start playing with a knife? You look around at the students in the desks behind you. They look back. You turn forwards very quickly. It would definitely be weird. People are still staring at you. This is so fucking dumb. This is so fucking… so fucking dumb. You reach for your phone, lamenting the fact that you didn’t think of this earlier, and stick your earbuds in with a bit more ferocity than is strictly necessary and force your body to stay still. You put on Counting Crows, even though they’re old as Abraham’s mummified balls, and tap your foot to the opening. Something in you goes on autopilot and you glance around the room, your eyes hopefully hidden. As they skip over the back of the room, you find yourself looking at the guy who told you where the registration office was. This time you’re paying a little more attention. He looks like he’s trying to become one with the wall, complete with boring as fuck wardrobe and a neutral (and from the looks of it, practiced) bitchy expression. He’s quite obviously pretending not to know you. He’s failing. When his eyes return to his phone, you lean over to the girl on your left. She starts a little.

“Who’s that guy.” she stares at you strangely for a bit, and you come to the realization that you may be freaking her out a little. You blame the homeschool. Feeling your social skills wither before your eyes, you try to backtrack. “Sorry. I’m new.” She nods slowly. Of course. She already knows that.

“Uh. Well. See, I don’t know much about him. He’s got a really fucking weird name, like with two k’s. His last name is Vantas. I think. Maybe it was Benson. I don’t know. Well, I do know because Mrs. Goshawk asked him if it was Italian which the name fucking Benson obviously isn’t, and he looked at her like she was fucking retarded and said no. So, like, sassy I guess? I don’t know. He’s kind of maybe just a little antisocial. Or maybe he’s selectively mute. Hmm.” she says all of this very, very fast.

You take a bit to try to decipher what she just said. Something about Italians? You feel like someone drove a train into your cranium, and you uncover a newfound sympathy for the people who you text when you’re having a philosophical episode. You should write Rose a thank-you note. “Thanks...” you say slowly. She shakes her head animatedly, as if to reassure you there’s no harm done, but you don’t wait for a response and turn away just in time to hear your name being called. You turn your head very quickly in order to respond and spend a few minutes listening to the most half-assed title track you’ve ever heard before realizing that you dropped an earbud. Just as you get everything adjusted, the tiny teacher at the front of the class calls a name you barely recognize from your conversation with the girl next to you.

“Vantas?” she mutters. He sits up straighter in his desk reflexively, and his gaze darts, but he raises his hand slowly, like he’s self-conscious. You make no attempt to disguise the fact that you’re staring at him. Rudely. He really is wearing the strangest clothing. He’s got a grey wool turtleneck bunched up at his elbows, and black skinny jeans that are at least three sizes too big and have thus lost their skinniness. Hiked up weirdly high. In addition to this, they have also been rolled up quite a few times to account for his incredible shortness, exposing ratty grey socks and the shittiest shoes you have ever had the misfortune of beholding. Holy shit. That. That is a New Balance logo. Oh my god. Do people actually wear those? Like in real life? You can feel your sneakerhead friends cringing all the way in Austin. He glances at you quickly, making sure to turn the other direction as soon as he notices that you noticed. 

You're not optimistic about the rest of the day, and it turns out you were correct in your expectations of dreariness. You can’t get over how different it is. And by different you mean really fucking boring. You have no idea how you’re going to make it through the rest of the school year. As it is, your classes pass uneventfully into lunch. You get a sandwich. You realize too late that you have nowhere to sit. The cafeteria is big, hot, ugly as fuck, the tables nearest to the food lines are all full of intimidatingly loud people, and the only tables that seem to welcome you are the empty ones. Bathroom stall or empty table? Of course, you already know the answer. People who sit alone at tables are easy targets for everyone. Hell, that’s the only reason people ever sit in bathrooms.

You walk slowly and quietly, aiming to be discreet. You push open the door to the bathroom and sit against the wall, tray in your lap. As you slide down, you glimpse a pair of graying sneakers under a stall. You go silent. Someone is singing in the bathroom. Badly. Really badly. You eat your food and try to ignore it. The food is disgusting. You contemplate dumping it, but don’t. As a general rule, you don’t like wasting food. 

So you eat. You think about the meaning of life. You contemplate a better slogan for Burger King, because the present one sucks. You think about Rose. You think about John. You think about slash fic as a concept but that gets a bit too meta after a while. You remember something funny that happened earlier this week but it actually wasn’t funny at all it was just you trying to inject humor into a humorless situation, which is a frequent problem of yours. You think about why that’s a problem. You imagine yourself talking to a therapist who’s really hot and also sounds like Rose. You have to physically force yourself not to give that sentence a second thought. 

You cannot fucking take it anymore.

“Oh. My. Shit. Will you shut the fuck up.” 

The person in the bathroom stops singing with a strangled yelp reminiscent of a cat being dropped. A loud crash echoes through the bathroom, along with a very loud “FUCK!” 

All is silent. 

You think they may have hurt themselves. This is the only reason you go over and knock on the stall. You are in no way guilty that you nearly gave them an aneurysm. Definitely not. 

“Hey. Uh. You okay in there?”

“....You made me drop my FUCKING brownie.” You snicker.

“And also your ass, from the sound of it. Did you spill your food or anything? I should get some paper towels, fuck. Wait double fuck, you don’t have lunch now. Fuck.”

“Christ, just give me a sec.” You can hear him count to ten under his breath. “Okay first of all why the hell--”

“I don’t know, okay? Your singing is just really bad!” You sound panicky and you hate it. But to be fair, you don’t think he’s having a great time either. 

“Just. Please. Stop fucking talking.” You hear him get up and brush himself off. He sighs. “I need my backpack.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions. Give me my fucking backpack.” His voice is level, almost calm, but you’re pretty sure he’s having an internal panic attack. You scan the room and pick up a very boring backpack, passing it over the door. He takes out of your hand.

He starts screaming into his backpack.

This goes on for some time.

Okay, he’s done.

Nope, wait. Not done.

Done?

Done. Okay. “You good?” you venture. He takes a deep breath. “Please don’t scream.” you plead. He doesn’t. “Okay. We’re good. Do you need some water, or… anything?” He says nothing. You feel the insatiable urge to fill the silence with bullshit. You don’t, but it takes considerable restraint. You start again. “Hey. Sorry for making you fly off the handle. And. Um. Sorry about making you drop your brownie. That was a dick move.” So much for not filling the silence with bullshit. “No man should ever unseat another man’s brownie. It’s a fucking betrayal of trust. A shattering of the bro code. A backstabbing of the masculine variety. A mutiny of the manhood. A treason of the testes. A penalty of the--”

“Please stop.”

“K.” 

He sorts himself out and opens the door and goes to pick up his bag and--

Oh my god.

What the shit. 

You know what? You ain’t even surprised. Why have both of your human interactions today been with this one very belligerent guy? Coincidence? Fate? Aliens? You are grasping for anything at this point. You contemplate all the reasons your life has gone so horribly wrong and find them lacking in anything that would justify this turn of events to even the cruelest of gods. He turns around to address you. 

“A word of advice, asshole. Be louder in general. You gave me a fucking heart attack.”

“Sorry man. Silence is in my veins. It was taught from a young age, ingrained in me by the powers that be, you merely adopted the silence, I was born in it, molded by it--” You falter awkwardly. He’s staring at you like one would stare at a train crashing in slow motion. Full-on Lady Shalott, staring at her approaching doom. The mirror fucking crack’d.

“Please don’t mention this to anyone.” His expression makes your retort freeze in your mouth. He looks terrified.

“Yeah.” you say. Your mouth feels dry. “Sure.” He opens the heavy door to the hallway, scans his head back and forth like he’s in a first person shooter game, and runs out. You eat your sandwich.

You pull out your phone and scroll through your contacts, slowly. You both love and hate looking at your contacts on your phone. You like writing notes at the bottom of everyone’s contact pages, and with people you’ve known for years you sometimes have as many as five paragraphs, most written in a exhaustion-induced haze at three in the morning. None of them are up to date, and very few make any coherent sense. Some you feel guilty about, some make you laugh, and some make you upset. Some you change. Some you leave intact. Some you delete in a fit of spite. When you were younger and more unstable, you hated them a little. Now they just exist in a vacuum. 

It’s only a little later that you realize that you don’t even know his first name. But just then, something nags at you, something in your head that tells you he’s going to be important. You don’t have a particularly strong sense of intuition, and you rarely listen to it, but just this once, on a whim, you decide to do something both optimistic and a bit sad. Right under Rose’s name on your contacts, you add a page entitled ‘Vantas’. You leave it blank.


	3. Chapter 3: Karkat Vantas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition, basically. Sorry guys. More domestic Maryams though, so have fun with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an unholy amount of exposition. Should I add trigger warnings for suicide mention? Is that a thing?

Your world is crumbling before your eyes. This is awful. This is so fucking awful. You held an entire fucking conversation with someone you barely know, the same exact day you met him, and you can’t trust him farther than you can throw your dresser, which is, first of all, a weird expression, and second of all, not very far at all. You had a fucking one-on-one interaction with someone that wasn’t explicitly necessary. You would like to state for the record that this is the first time this has happened at school in two--no, three--years. This is actually hell. How do normal people do this? Every day? 

He’s going to disappear and never look at you again.

He’s going to tell everyone.

He’s going to say nothing.

He’s going to try to talk to you. 

You can’t figure out which is worst. 

Actually, you can. If he mentions you to anyone, your invisibility is compromised irrevocably. Harassed in the halls, mocked on street corners, stuffed into lockers if you’re unlucky. This is a genuine risk, because you’re small enough to actually fit in a locker. And above it all, there’s a horrifying possibility that Dave Strider, who has a stupid name, will actually approach you and attempt to befriend you. You cannot risk that happening. You wrack your brain for courses of action. Maybe you can switch schools. Maybe you can poison him. Maybe you can bribe him. I mean, honestly speaking, there are a lot of options. 

You are in no way overreacting.

You continue your stroll with the dark cloud hanging over your head still intact. As you near the end of the street, you turn down a less traveled back road. The houses get shabbier before they get larger and further apart, eventually giving way to the marshy pseudo-forest of your front yard. You reach the end of the paved driveway and turn left onto a dirt tractor path through a row of evergreens, the mud caking the treads of your shoes. You can see the mint green paneling. You walk up the driveway, past the green pickup truck, and look up at the house.

A double-tiered wrap-around porch with white chipping paint leers before you as you climb the creaking steps. You slam open the screen door and knock on the solid wood. Porrim opens the door. She slips off her headphones, and they let out muted strains of nineties power ballads. “How was it?”

“Not boring,” you reply.

“Shame. Come on in. Kanaya is making tomato soup.” You walk into the house obediently. Sure enough, Kanaya is making tomato soup. She turns around.

“Oh. Hello Karkat. How was it?”

“Jesus Christ Kanaya. I just answered that five fucking seconds ago.”

“Not boring, hmmm?”

“Where’s Dolores?”

“She’s on the porch, reading,” Porrim puts in.

“What’s she reading now?”

“The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“Fuck, again?” you ask incredulously. Kanaya rolls her eyes commiseratingly. Dolores is known for her passivity when it comes to book choice. She has an odd habit of cycling through every book she owns and then starting again when she’s done, a dizzying cycle that conveniently serves to mark the passage of time. The Handmaid’s Tale is typically read in autumn and finished just in time for fall break. After that comes all of the Murder She Wrote series sequentially, which can take until January. She takes a break in the middle to read Christmas themed things. She doesn’t differentiate between children’s books and adult novels, and her two Christmas favorites are The Gift Of The Magi and One Hundred And One Dalmatians. Not the animated movie, but the original book. Dolores used to read it to you.

You guess you should explain why you live with her. Long story short, your dad was an activist from Italy. Your mother’s name was Dinah Leijon. She had two children, you and your brother. Both of your biological parents are dead. Someone shot your dad. That was sixteen years ago, and you weren’t even born yet. Needless to say, it put a serious damper on things. Your mother is assumed to have committed suicide shortly thereafter--according to her sister--but there wasn’t ever an investigation or anything. Unhelpfully, Dolores was not a US citizen, not a relative, did not have a partner, and already had two children. None of these made her ideal for a legal guardian, but she managed, mostly because she is a literal goddess.

The first three years of your life were shitty by normal standards. You were shipped along an endless parade of relatives of your mother’s. You decided that Leijons are all screw-ups, except for maybe Nepeta and Meulin, the local scholarship kids. Basically, Dolores saved your ass. She would not give up on you, attending innumerable interviews, consultations, paperwork pickups, and every formality under the sun with some sort of endless well of mythical patience. She became a hound, hell-bent on getting custody of your dad’s kids. There are still receptionists who remember her coming up to the counter every five minutes to glare at them with disgust and loathing. Being the person between Dolores Maryam and what she wanted was, and indeed still is, the equivalent of being emotionally charged by a raging bull.

She eventually got custody of you and Kankri, your brother. You are a success story of the adoption system. They like to claim responsibility for your family, which is total bullshit by the way. All they did was drive you around for three years on what amounted to a cross continental anti drug promotional. Because of the adoption system, Dolores basically missed your entire childhood. 

There. Shitty life story complete. 

You think that you may be a compulsive over-sharer. 

You were never sad about it. You were a baby, after all. So you just defaulted to pissed and there you stayed. It’s an inconvenience, mostly. You eat your tomato soup in silence. As your spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl, you kick the legs of the table and put your face in your hand. Kanaya blinks at you owlishly, and her lashes flick a speck of makeup on your cheek. You brush it away irritably. “Karkat.” She blinks at you again. “What’s wrong?” When you don’t respond, her voice gains a vaguely threatening edge. “Karkat.” she says slowly. “I cannot help you. If you do not talk.”

“You really want me to spill shit all over this nice table?”

“Proverbial shit is relatively easy to clean,” she puts simply. “How was your day?” You blurt out the whole story embarrassingly fast. Like you said. Compulsive over-sharer. When you finish, Kanaya looks at you, vaguely impressed. “That’s the most toxic thing I’ve heard all day.” she remarks casually.

“I’m insulted, Kanaya. Defense mechanisms have their uses in a cruel world filled with assholes of a variety of shapes.”

“Some people aren’t like that.”

“None of them go to my high school, then,” you snap. Kanaya gives you a look that you can only describe as aggressively maternal, topping it off with one of her melodramatic you’re-a-lost-cause-Karkat sighs. She looks at Porrim with a sad, knowing smile. Porrim responds in kind. You simmer and eat some more soup while carefully avoiding both of their gazes. Kanaya breaks the silence.

“So? He seemed nice.”

“I know. It’s disconcerting.”

“Karkat, just take the hint. Would it really be so bad to have someone to talk to?”

“Yes.” you lie. There’s a solid chance that Kanaya will continue trying to auxiliate, but it’s kind of your last hope. Kanaya stares at you for a minute, her eyes narrowed. It’s her signature move. You don’t flinch. She looks away, hopefully convinced of your innocence. You finish up your soup and put your dish in the sink. You take off your socks and drop them in the laundry basket just inside the kitchen door, walking onto the porch to talk to Dolores. She’s sitting in her usual place, a wingback chair with thick red upholstery, her feet resting on a matching stool at the foot of the chair. Her thick black hair is elaborately styled into wings at the side of her head, just like Kanaya does hers, but with grey streaks at her temples like the bride of Frankenstein. She looks up at you, her black eyes glinting a little.

“Hello Karkat.” She takes her feet off of the red footstool and you sit down. She folds her book carefully and leans towards you. Her long black dress rustles. You’ve never seen her wear anything other than black, except in pictures. She takes your hands in her pale ones. “How was school?” You look at her hands, white and old and nails painted black. She’s only forty-one, but sadness gives her the appearance of having lived centuries. Her smiles are bittersweet and soft, like a woman smiling at a ghost. Or a ghost smiling at a woman, which would probably make more sense contextually.

“Lovely.” you lie. She squeezes your hand and looks at you.

“I’m glad.” she lies. Dolores isn’t the kind of person to really be glad about anything at this point. Your eyes flicker to the sky above the house, heavy storm clouds obscuring the sky.

“You should come inside and cover the chair, Dolores. It’s going to rain.”

“No. It’s quite alright. You know I like storms.” On cue, the sky starts to sprinkle. You turn to walk back inside, giving her one last glance as the sky starts to roil and storm. She seems perfectly at ease, staring into the fog as water soaks her dress. She’s kind of a weird lady, which is the main reason you like her.

“You sure do, Dolores.” You remark to yourself. You slide the screen door closed. Kanaya puts the soup pot in the sink and turns on the faucet. 

“I’m worried about her, Karkat.”

“You shouldn’t be. Worry about the chair. That thing is going to mildew like nobody’s fucking business.” She frowns.

“I’m worried about both of you, honestly. Can you empty the dishwasher?”

“Sure, Kanaya.”


	4. Chapter 4: Dave Strider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haha! It's chapter 4/20! did i do the meme right?

 

You think you’re obligated to say that you had planned not to get involved. I mean, you, as a general rule, avoid anything that might get you caught up in a situation that challenges you on a mental or emotional level, which is really unfortunate because you’re always getting dragged into them kicking and screaming. You wonder if your home life had anything to do with it. That’s a bad question. Your home life seems to seep into fuckall of your personality facets. Like emotionally distancing yourself, which in your defense has gotten better, but not better enough apparently because there was that one incident around last year where you actually had like this really weird episode where you physically could not tell someone what your astrological sign was because you were afraid of them interpreting it negatively, and then there was the thing where you had a panic attack at a tarot reading, which you think was actually probably due to the incense but maybe not, so you’ll count that anyways and you still can’t play any card games where you have to lie because if anyone calls you on it you disassociate really hard and you should stop now. But this is just unreasonably hard. Honestly, fuck high school. Whose bright idea was this, cramming hormonally reliant and semi-gangly teens pumped full of endorphins, negative body image and the inherent stupidity only achievable via an unholy cocktail of alcohol and childlike naïveté in the same general vicinity for the vast majority of their daily life? You’re not interested. You’ve done this before. You just need to wait it out and ignore everything until you do. Don’t get emotionally invested. That’s the plan.

 

TL;DR, high school sucks and you don’t want to talk to anyone. Also you’re insecure about your personality. Also you’ve been looking at this thesaurus for  _ way _ too fucking long. (Naïveté? Seriously?)

The plan fails in about twenty minutes. Curse group projects and their questionable benefit to individual communication skillsets. Normally you really enjoy math. It requires minimal communication, requires no excessive hellspawn writing assignments, also known as essay questions, and has had an appeal to you since your elementary school years. Math is awesome. Contrary to everything else about school, it’s not subjective. You’ve kind of had a problem with this _.  _ With math, there’s always something you can point to, other than your own major issues of course. 

You were given a notes page to work on, and after you finished it, quickly, you consulted the partners list and oh okay. Your partner is Vantas dude. Why. Why is this happening to you. Why are you being constantly fucking shoved against this guy in every possible situation. What asshole is orchestrating this? Deep breaths. You can handle this. Totally absolutely. You put your pencil down, and slowly and deliberately lower your head to your desk, resulting in a gentle thunk. You watch him for about five minutes until his face contorts into a mask of fear and loathing, presumably induced by the same realization you’d had a few minutes ago. He crumples his paper and checks his list carefully, taking a good minute this time. For someone who tries not to be noticed, he sure is noticeable. He’s so shitty at hiding his emotions that it’s almost funny. Almost. When he comes to the conclusion that it is you, for the second time, he slowly and carefully lowers his head to his desk with a soft thunk, an imitation of you so perfect that you decide he must have been watching you when you did it first. The thought of him watching you is weird. Stop thinking about it. Just. No. Just like, stop, thinking. You. You there reading this. You stop thinking about it too. No one is allowed to fucking think about it.

You wait it out, looking anxiously at the clock about once every thirty seconds, willing it to either slow down or speed up, you aren’t sure which. You feel for some reason like this is possible, but your as-of-now-still-untapped time warp powers fail to respond. So you look at your math partner. Fuck. You really need to learn his name. Your slightly space-agey teacher looks up from her book briefly only to perform a dramatic double take as she looks at the clock. She stands up quickly. “Okay then! Hopefully we’ve all double-checked our calculations. Raise your hand if you finished before I stopped grading and started reading a trashy romance novel.” This elicits a few snickers, but a few kids raise their hands. Including you. Not including Vantas kid. (At least you know his last name, right?) “Excellent,” she chirps. “Bonus points.” Sweet. Your math partner glowers at you from two seats away. You smirk apologetically. “Anyway,” she continues, and rattles off the pairings. You pray you are wrong. You are not. If it was possible for him to glower more, he does. You and the chick next to him switch. When you put your books down, he makes a big show of raising his eyebrows dramatically, which you guess you should have expected after tastefully decorating your notebooks with shitty clip art and stupid movie quotes. His gaze flashes from you to the tastefully decorated notebooks and back again, as if trying and failing to figure out the connection. You raise your eyebrows at him, and try as best you can to convey the implied challenge: break face and learn all about Dave Strider’s habitual notebook improvement skills, or suffer in silent curiosity for the rest of your natural life. He doesn’t break.

You open the notebook and start taking notes. The explanation of the math project is pretty simple, you just have to make a chart with information on percentages of students who remember some weird formula from last year, like a memory retention survey. You think you could finish it in a day. Your math partner stares blankly. You recognize it as the kind of look you get when someone starts discussing plural verbs and capitalization rules, which is to say, the blank-faced dead-inside expression of a high school student regretting his life decisions while an endless tirade of indecipherable words floods through his ears, taunting him with the knowledge that at some point, he’ll have to cough this shit up in order to pass the fucking class. Projection on your part? Possibly.

“Hey.” He looks up and scowls. “I can’t read your mind. Do you have a pronounceable name?” He stares at you. You try again. “What’s your name?” His eyes narrow, and he shakes his head slowly, a perfect deadpan. “Please?” you add. He continues shaking. “Dude. Seriously.” The shaking gets faster. “Why is this such a federal fucking issue?” He rolls his eyes. He dips his hand into his bag and pulls out what looks like a memo pad. He scribbles frantically and pushes a note in your face.  _ KARKAT VANTAS. I’M NOT MUTE. I JUST CUSSED OUT MY SISTER YESTERDAY AND I’M SUPER HOARSE NOW. PLEASE SHUT UP.  _ “Why did you cuss out your sister?” His face colors a tiny fraction and he adds something to the note.  _ SHE WAS BEING PRESUMPTUOUS. SHE DOES THAT A LOT.  _ “What was she presuming?” His face is definitely red now, most likely from burning rage. He continues to scribble frantically, this time pushing so hard that the lead on his mechanical pencil breaks, and he clicks it furiously.  _ DO YOU ALWAYS ASK THIS MANY GODDAMN QUESTIONS?! SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!  _ He helpfully flips you off to accentuate his meaning even more, just in case you can’t read. You consider ruining his day and insisting on continuing this BS conversation throughout the rest of the class, but that seems unnecessarily cruel. A noise comes from behind both of you.

“Boys. Work.” You turn around and nod, giving your teacher a slightly sarcastic thumbs-up. She scowls. Karkat scribbles a note.  _ I’m terribly sorry ma’am. Won’t happen again.  _ He smiles at her too. He turns back to you, still smiling, but his expression is now comparable to to that of an exasperated parent whose child has just presented to them a crayon masterpiece rendered on an extremely important welfare application document. He is apparently too angry to write at this point. He says something and Jesus Christ he wasn’t kidding about being hoarse you hope his sister wasn’t deafened.

“If you fuck with me just  _ one more time,  _ I will give you a bitch slap so hard you’ll wish you didn’t have a face.”

“I seriously doubt your ability to make me wish I didn’t have a face. I love my face. Also, I forgot to ask; you are okay, right? Just checking in, you looked pretty freaked out yesterd--”

In retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. At least, this is the conclusion you come to while holding a pack of frozen peas over your face, snagged from your space-agey teacher’s minifridge. Karkat looks like everyone currently in the room just spat on and or flirted lewdly with his grandmother, and may or may not be hyperventilating from the considerable amount of negative attention he is currently having heaped upon him. You would feel sorry for him, but your face stings like a bitch and right now you are silently cursing whoever invented backslaps and or fingernails. Karkat has very long, very dangerous looking fingernails. You are not sure if they drew blood but it sure as hell feels like it. He looks like he’s kind of having an existential crisis. You guess he has some sort of issue with associating himself with people or being… social at all? In which case you feel like kind of a douche. You firmly remind yourself that you are sitting in a distinctly uncomfy chair with a poky-as-hell makeshift ice pack on your beautiful face, probably developing a Karkat’s-hand-shaped bruise. Don’t get too sympathetic. You just sort of… awkwardly perch outside someone’s office while Karkat gets chewed out. You consider going to your locker and getting your phone. Before you can do anything, however, Karkat storms out of the office in front of you and comes dangerously close to knocking over the elderly secretary’s coffee cup. She glares at him. He glares back. You try not to crack up. He barely looks at you and walks out. Someone yells from the back room, “Don’t slam!” and he manages to keep from breaking the hinges. Honestly, apart from your face getting screwed up, this whole situation has been very entertaining.

Your day is uneventful. You get assigned another essay, doodle a little, eat about two bites of shitty school lunch, (By your locker, not in the bathroom.) and drown in the crippling monotony of the education system. You guess you wish you hadn’t been bitchslapped, but honestly you’ve had a lot worse. It’s been a while, that’s all. You aren’t shaking. At about two you forget something in your locker and go up to get it. As you grab a calculator, your hand brushes something taped neatly to the back of your locker. It’s the kind of envelope that people use to send fancy invitations, expensive stationary. Someone has scrawled your name on it in green ink. You almost feel bad about screwing up the envelope, so you use scissors and feel suitably gentlemanly. The stationary has an ostentatious green watermark that you can’t quite make out. You tilt your head a bit to read the slanty cursive. 

 

_ Hello. If you please, Mr. Strider, I would like to request a small favor. An interested party would like to be able to contact you. A telephone number would be ideal, but if you prefer mail, such would be sufficient.  _

 

What the fuck. 

 

_ If you are so inclined to initiate communication, locker 612 has not been used by a student in recent memory.  _

 

No. Like  _ what the fuck. _

 

You spend about six minutes trying to locate locker 612 before discovering it’s the empty locker below yours. Handy. Someone has put an unopened pack of index cards and a red sharpie inside. 

 

This is creepy.

 

Fuck it, you’re bored.

 

You write down your phone number very quickly and lodge it in the backpack hook. On second thought, you add the letter as well, and shut the locker quickly. You pull your bag up on your shoulder and drum your fingers on the latch a bit before taking off down the hall. You almost start playing with your knife again, but after consulting with Rose, you’ve decided to save it for emergencies. Knives are, tragically, against school policy, but nobody needs to know. It should be fine. You wonder if putting your number in a random locker because a note told you to is a bad idea. 

 

Nah.

 

You live life on the edge, don’t stop me now, you only flirt with death, all that jazz.

You stare at the cars going by, waiting for your stepbrother. You know he’s really your brother, but Mom, sarcastic whoops, you mean Mrs. Roxanne Lalonde, was very picky about this. Dirk still drives you places, since your legal guardian is always busy. He pulls up, resplendent in an ancient orange car old enough to be your grandfather. You always forget just how retina-burningly ugly it is until you see it, blindingly orange and disgusting in every way a thing can be disgusting. “Get in loser. We’re going grocery shopping.”

 

“You did not seriously make a Mean Girls reference just now.” He looks at you, his face level and mostly expressionless.

 

“Mean Girls is a masterpiece. I will not tolerate this kind of slander from you, young man. I hope you don’t need milk, because I only brought enough for my stuff and maybe two microwave dinners.”

 

“What are you getting?”

 

“You know those bulk Costco boxes of ramen?” 

 

“You are going to die so young.” he flicks his shades down and stares at you.

 

“That’s the plan.” 

 

Dirk has problems. Rose is always trying to get him into therapy, but you don’t think she realizes that therapy costs money that you don’t have. You sigh and hop in the car, throwing your bag in the back. Dirk stares blankly at the road ahead and slams the gas pedal like he’s running from something. Knowing Dirk, he probably is. You cling for dear life to the armrests, your teeth practically jiggling in your gums. Your glasses push uncomfortably against the bridge of your nose from the pressure of the wind, and you can actually feel your hair getting screwed up. At least Dirk’s having fun. He grins against the wind with all of his teeth, his glasses hooked on his shirt, and his hair flying, for once, in exactly the way he wants it to. He laughs so hard and so loud you think his face is going to split open.

 

“Having fun?” he asks. You smile weakly and nod. His smile widens. “You know, when I go to hell, this is the only thing I’m going to miss.” 

 

The implication is not lost on you. You reach for your knife, but decide against it in a moving car. 


	5. Chapter 5: Karkat Vantas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filler sorry

“Kanaya I need help.” She puts down her computer and levels her gaze at you placidly.

“Would this have anything to do with the stationary you asked to borrow and the note you asked me to write?” She poses the question innocently, feigning obliviousness. “Or the information about your day I managed to pry out of the dead, vice-like grip of your futile refusal to vent with your sister?” She tuts sarcastically. “Honestly Karkat. After living with me for thirteen years you should have known better.” Her delicate smile turns decidedly smug. “You can hide nothing.” You fume. You’re too hoarse to really do a full verbal attack justice; besides, Porrim threatened to make you do all the dishes for a week if you woke up Dolores again. Dolores is an old, tired woman who has worked too hard her entire fucking life, and honestly, if you wake her up again, dishes will look merciful compared to the seven layer slice of guilt and self loathing that comes whenever she runs down the stairs with her hair in curlers and one of her various old-as-fuck green nightgowns and groggily asks you what the fuss is about. 

Kanaya is still smiling at you with her two-tone goth lipstick and blindingly white teeth. You settle for flipping her off and going to get some of her celery. (Maryams are vegan, athletic, and revoltingly healthy. Worst of all, they actually like it.) You munch in a distinctly pissy manner. You can’t decide if sisters are better or worse than best friends, but you wouldn’t know, since you’ve never really had a best friend. Kanaya’s kind of both.

“Well. I got his locker combination from the janitor;”

“The janitor?” She looks at you incredulously. “Wait, why did you need his combination? Couldn’t you have just slipped it it?”

“I wanted to tape it to the back to freak him out.”

“Karkat, he probably didn’t even notice.”

“I noticed.”

“Why the janitor, Karkat? That man is--” She hesitates. “Problematic.”

“I like janitors. Janitors and I have a lot in common. I’ve been basically best buds with the guy here for, like, five years now, so I can call in a few favors. Sometimes we buy each other lunch. His name is Jack.” Kanaya looks at you strangely.

“You are on a first name basis with the janitor, and yet you still cannot summon the courage to introduce yourself to another member of your class without employing highly self-indulgent scavenger hunt style handwritten dialogue. You are full of depressing surprises, Karkat.”

“Can it, Kanaya. Anyways, I put the note in his locker once I got to school, just like I planned. His locker is a total fucking wreck. It’s only been like two days, what the hell? But anyway. I did that. Classes went great, blah blah blah bitch blah blah blah moan. And then everything went to shit.” You trail off as you heave your backpack onto your lap. It nearly causes you to keel over, but with a little frantic scrabbling and a few undignified noises, you manage to get yourself in a position to open your backpack. Kanaya looks at you with concern. You reach into your backpack and rummage around a little.

“Qué buscas?” she asks quietly, leaning over to you. You grunt and hand her a piece of paper with a flourish. 

“Karkat Vantas! How on earth did you manage to get a week’s detention?” She looks up at you with confusion. “Even Vriska didn’t get that long and she called the French teacher a blah blah blah blah” Fucking Vriska. It’s getting to the point where you can’t even have a conversation with Kanaya about anything without her bringing it back around to fucking Serket. Once Kanaya starts talking about her, you’ve learned her coherency level goes to shit. You don’t like Vriska. She and her sister came over for Thanksgiving once and it kind of sucked. Dolores is Vriska’s mom’s secretary, (they totally screwed) and between Kanaya fussing at Vriska, Vriska’s sister ogling Porrim and Mrs. Serket trying to get in Dolores’ pants again you were all lesbianed out by the end of the night. Back to the present.

“I slapped him.” Her face falls.

“Karkat!”

“I’m sorry, okay Kanaya? He’s just… such. A fucking. Douche. He’s the worst, no, worse than the worst piece of shit I’ve ever had to scrape off a public toilet seat.” She looks at you strangely. 

“Really.”

“Figure of speech. But, just… take the shades for example, okay? He never takes them off. Ever. Even when it’s dark as fuck, even when he’s in the bathroom, even when he reads and shit.”

“How do you know he doesn’t take them off in the bathroom?”

“Context clues.” you snap. 

“I was simply curious.”

“But, uh. He still has the note, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when he puts his number in the locker. If I don’t call it, he might try to trace the stationary… or something,” you finish awkwardly. Kanaya shakes her head at you and tuts.

“It’s simply no use. You will have to call him.” she mutters under her breath, probably sarcastically. You pretend not to notice.  
`  
“Fuck. I know.”

“Karkat. This isn’t really a big deal.”

“But he’s an asshole.”

“You do not know this for a fact.” You glare at her. Kanaya isn’t normally this pushy, but you guess she has a point. The only person who knows your name outside of your family is your doctor and the school janitor. And as of recently, Dave Strider. Fuck it.

“Okay. But. There was a reason I slapped him. Other than the obvious reasons present in my previous paragraph. He um. Brought up things.”

“And you lost your temper.” She mutters, exasperated. “You could always make a fake identity,” she says flatly. It takes you a minute to figure out she’s being sarcastic. Kanaya and sarcasm have a rocky relationship.

“Kanaya. That’s a genuine idea.”

“Karkat. You cannot seriously be considering this.” Her gaze turns serious. “That is a horrible idea, only entertainable in the event of a tragic miscarriage of logic or the assumption of a state of being in which one is transformed into a shitty romcom character.”

“All of my role models are shitty romcom characters.”

“Fair point. But still. This is a terrible idea.”

“Fuck you, this is my awful screw up and I get to fix it how I want to. Weren’t you just bitching about how much I needed to talk to him? This is talking to him.”

“No, this is anonymously chatting with him over the phone. Physical interaction is a large part of friendship. Especially if you know each other in person. Additional especially if you quite literally are in the same school, grade, homeroom, neighborhood, social caste, etc.” You look at her darkly. “This is the only way you’re going to talk to anyone, isn’t it?” You nod. She sighs. “The bottom line is, this idea is laughable. But. I will help. Because I am essentially your best friend. Apart from the janitor apparently.”

“Will you shut up about the janitor already?”

“I will not.” She looks at you flatly. “It will be fine, Karkat. Despite what you think, people really aren’t out to get you.” You snort.

“Everyone is out to get everyone. People are assholes, Kanaya. Assholes.” She smiles at you a little and pats your shoulder consolingly. You pull away, uncomfortable. Kanaya pulls her laptop back on her lap and begins typing rapidly. 

“Not everyone’s like that.”

“Clearly you’ve never been to my high school.” She looks at you, confused.

“But I have been to your high school. Why do you keep saying--”

“Not! The! Point!”

You drop your bag on the floor with a thump and pull out your own computer. You have about six pages of notes to do. You’re not looking forward to it.

You must have fallen asleep at the table, because when you wake up you find yourself perched on the generous sofa in the living room. Someone has covered you with Kanaya’s green comforter. Probably Kanaya. Clinking from the kitchen tells you that breakfast is already coming along, and someone (again, probably Kanaya) has left you a folded stack of clothes on the coffee table. You pull them on in the bathroom down the hall instead of in the living room because news flash, you’re not a fucking heathen. When you walk into the kitchen, you find that Kanaya has not only put away all your books, but charged your laptop as well. You know those people who are so nice they make you feel guilty? Kanaya’s one of them. 

In other news, it’s still cold as fuck. Due to your unexpected crash, you got about eight hours of sleep last night, which is about six more than you normally get, so you woke up kind of early and got to school before anyone else. So you blare music in the high school hallway for fifteen minutes and lip sync to Mariah Carey like anyone else in your situation would do. It’s great. You’re paging through a John Green novel and sobbing quietly when you remember to check locker 612. And boy does that snap you out of your reverie. Fuck this. You’re extra quiet opening the locker despite no one being there to hear you. You can never be too careful. You pull out the note conveniently lodged in the backpack hook very quickly and feel suitably ninja-y. It’s been folded like six times and secured with a rubber band. What a tool. You open the note carefully and smooth it out against your phone. A number is printed legibly in red sharpie, with parentheses around the area code. You frown at it for a minute. God, who does that? You don’t even need to write the area code, and yet he not only put the area code down but also added two little parentheses to indicate that the phone number, in fact, does not need a fucking area code. Just, fucking, what? He prob- oh. There’s words on the back. hey so could you do me a solid and not call me during school hours? my ringtone is what’s up by four non-blondes and my english teacher said if he had to hear it one more time he was going to give me four detentions. thx. Oh my god. This fucker. You find yourself snickering despite your best attempts at restraint.

You pull your phone back out and pull up your contacts, programming Dave’s number into the phone and make a mental note to take a picture of something unpleasant to put as his profile image. You meditate a bit on what his contact name will be before finally settling on ‘Insufferable Prick’. You like it so much that you change Kankri’s identical contact name to simply ‘asshole’ in order to prevent confusion. You stuff your phone back into your pocket and wander onto the school yards to find some dog shit to take a picture of.


	6. Chapter 6: Dave Strider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah i dont know what the fuck im doing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! Sorry about the late update folks. Shit happened. Christmas got fucked. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

 

Trying to find your shirt on your porch in fifty degree weather is not the best way to start your day. It seemed like a good idea to ditch your drier in Austin, but you’re beginning to think that nothing about moving to this goddamn deep south clusterfuck was ever a good idea. In the time you’ve been here, you’ve seen no less than seventeen filthy wife-beaters, which is seventeen more than your lifelong quota. You can almost hear John’s excited squeal from here. You have been out of contact for a while though. Shit, you don’t even know if he still likes Nic Cage. You hope against hope that he finally got over that greasy-haired poser badass, but once John figures out that Con Air is actually a bad movie, your childhood is over. You frown to yourself and absently run your finger over the bridge of your shades. God, you hope he still likes Con Air. It would be a real shitshow if he didn’t. A revving motorbike out in front of your house snaps you out of your reverie. You start, and your heart begins to race, which is pretty stupid considering that the motorcycle you’re worried about is already parked in your driveway. You aren’t a huge fan of motorcycles at this point.

 

You find your shirt hanging on the line outside of the porch and put it on. You also check your fingers for signs of hypothermia. You wonder if you’ll see your math partner today. You also wonder, a bit masochistically, if you’ll ever see John again.  

 

You decide to walk to school early. You don’t want to risk an encounter with your brother, especially not in the morning. He’d kill you if you woke him up. There’s a few brave, over-achieving stragglers at school when you walk up, but in general the place is deserted. You’re just heading downstairs to see if the cafeteria is open yet when you realize you haven’t checked your phone to see if someone texted you. You should... probably do that. Pulling up your phone, you realize too late that you haven’t texted Rose in a while. You have forty-two messages. Fuuuuuuck. You take a minute and scan her texts, looking for signs of life. Nothing stands out to you. As you near the bottom of the page, the imposing sprawl of lavender comes to a close. Her last message stares at you accusingly from the bottom of the screen. 

 

_ If you have rampaging unaddressed problems with the hypermasculine worldview, do not respond. _

 

Oh shit. She’s pissed. That is definitely going to bite you in the ass someday. You close her messages. Not today though. It’s not that you’re afraid to deal with her, it’s that you’re paralyzingly terrified of dealing with her. Especially in the morning. Talking to Rose with a hangover is kind of like knitting. It’s time-consuming, frustrating, and detrimental to your sanity. You have one message left to read from an unknown number. Probably locker… guy? Chick? Asshole. Locker asshole. You open it up.

 

_ HELLO SHITBAG.  _ Cordial. 

 

_ dude you flew right by the fucking pleasantries and went straight to the affectionate trash talk i dont even know your name what the hell _

 

_ THERE’S NOTHING AFFECTIONATE ABOUT IT. _

 

_ bitch you called me _

 

_ WHAT? _

 

_ what _

 

_ COULD YOU POSSIBLY MEAN, QUOTE, ‘bitch *COMMA* you called  _ me _ ’ UNQUOTE? COMMAS GO AFTER INTRODUCTORY PHRASES YOU SHIT.  _

 

_ okay jesus calm your tits _

 

_ JESUS DOESN’T HAVE TITS. _

 

_ oh my fucking god why is this such a federal fucking issue _

 

The bell rings right as you finish typing. Homeroom. You type a half-assed reply and high-tail it out of there, sticking your phone in your back pocket. You aren’t late this time around, so you plop down in the seat in the front and watch the people go by. They move around your desk as if it was empty, leaning on each other with calculated casualness. A voice in your head calmly tells you that  _ they’re just high school students,  _ and  _ they’re not out to get you, _ but the voices in your head have been known to be full of shit. They seem unapproachable to you, not in a negative way, but in a way that seems achingly distant, like your head has labeled them people, but only in theory. You wonder if this is what it’s like to be socially awkward. 

 

You glance around at the back of the class. No Karkat. Sweeping the premises for witnesses, you carefully pull your phone out of your pocket, situating it in your lap. 

 

_ im back _

 

_ TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH. _

 

_ hey where are you now? cause im in the middle of homeroom and im going to get caught eventually. _

 

_ I’M BEHIND THE GYM. _

 

_ the bell rang. youre late.  _

 

_ SHIT. _

 

_ nah its cool i think ms whatsherface went out to go ponder her life choices and drink shitty coffee. You should be fine.  _

 

_ HOLY FUCK WAS THAT A CAPITALIZED LETTER? _

 

_ shit.  _

 

_ I KNEW IT. I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT. IMAGINE ME FLICKING A SINGLE TEAR FROM MY CHEEK WITH A PROUD SNIFFLE.  _

 

_ okay change of subject who the fuck are you. _

 

_ I’D TELL YOU, BUT THAT SEEMS LIKE A HELL OF A LOT OF NONE-OF-YOUR-FUCKING-BUSINESS. _

 

_ excuse me? _

 

_ I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU, YOU  SOCIALLY INEPT PISSBUCKET. _

 

_ why? _

 

_ I PREFER TO REMAIN FUCKING ANONYMOUS. _

 

_ thats the stupidest thing ive ever heard. _

 

_ IN LIGHT OF YOUR RECENT COMMENTARY, I FIND THAT TO BE STEAMING BULLSHIT. _

 

_ okay but seriously. its not going to take me long to figure it out. im not an idiot. _

 

_ I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED.  _

 

_ hold on. _

 

You seriously meditate on it. You’re looking for someone with a disturbingly large vocabulary, no volume control, and. Welp.

 

You stare at the front of the room feeling yourself get more socially inept by the minute. You feel stupid. Really stupid. 

 

_ you wouldnt happen to be about four feet tall of medium coloring and really angry for some reason, would you? _

 

_ FIVE FEET! FIVE FUCKING FEET!  _

 

_ okay yeah thats totally you.  _

 

Yep. Finally confirmed, Dave Strider is an idiot. The world rejoices in the end of the mystery that wasn’t really much of a mystery to begin with. They’re all clapping each other on the back saying ‘Hey! I knew all along, but congrats on figuring it out anyway!’ Everyone’s happy and drinking champagne. There’s a lady in a black dress at the podium talking about how definitively determining the idiocy levels of Dave Strider changed her life for the better. Everyone’s dabbing their eyes with tissues and muttering to one another that they always knew, deep in their hearts, that Dave Strider was a total fucking idiot. And then the lady at the podium nods with this sad little nostalgic smile and then the movie ends and we have to listen to some shitty power ballad until the credits finally stop rolling. Fuck, he’s typing again. 

 

_ THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ANONYMOUS, YOU SHIT! THIS IS DAMAGE CONTROL FOR THE BATHROOM THING! _

 

_ damage control? _

 

_ IT’S WHEN YOU ATTEMPT TO STEM THE CONSEQUENCES WHEN SOMETHING REALLY DISASTROUS HAPPENS, AS ANYONE WITH FUNCTIONING MENTAL CAPABILITIES COULD FIGURE OUT. _

 

_ i know what damage control is man i just dont know why you need it. _

 

_ I’M NOT GOING TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT. YOU KNOW ENOUGH PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ME AS IT IS.  _

 

_ jesus karkat. i know your name, phone number, and basic aspects of your location. i dont exactly have enough information to steal your identity. _

_ WHO SAID YOU COULD CALL ME KARKAT? _

 

_ i dont know who said you had to be such a little bitch all the time. _

 

_ THAT’S WEAK. _

 

_ yeah okay that was kind of weak. so uh i told you you werent late, but our resident enforcer of order is strolling down the hall at a leisurely 50mph with a glare to scorch hell so i strongly recommend hauling ass. _

 

_ OH SHIT.  _

 

_ yeah. _

 

_ WHY IS ONE OF US ALWAYS LATE FOR HOMEROOM? _

 

_ hey i dont know about you man but i have never been late for homeroom. I am a fucking straight-a no absence pencil-fucker with a coffee stained polo, pocket protector, and intact virginity. _

 

_ THAT’S ACEPHOBIC. _

 

_ your face is acephobic. _

 

_ OKAY, HOLD ON. I’LL BE RIGHT THERE. _

 

You look outside to see him speedwalking down the hall, his face a mask of comical concentration. He slows down to fall in step with your homeroom teacher, starting up polite conversation seemingly out of thin air. She’s smiling and nodding along to whatever he’s yapping about, like he’s her coworker or something. Damn _.  _ He’s good. He slides into a seat in the back of the class with impressive serenity and smirks at you like a fucking cat who got the cream.

 

_ I’M BACK.  _

 

That smug bastard. You scowl and text back.

 

_ you fucking cheat youre not supposed to make friends with the teachers _

_ PEOPLE SAY I’M CHARISMATIC. _

 

_ bull. shit. i asked someone your name the other day and the best they could give me is that it had ks in it. _

 

_ OH, YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. YOU MUST HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD. HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AREN’T PEOPLE. THEY’RE BARELY SENTIENT MOVING SACKS OF PROTEIN WITH JUST ENOUGH MENTAL STAMINA TO SCRAPE THE BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF BEING A FUCKING HOMO SAPIEN. _

_ dude. you’re a high-school student. _

 

_ DID I FUCKING STUTTER. _

 

You look over to where he’s sitting to check if he’s joking. He looks… disturbingly serious. 

 

_ youre not gonna shoot up the school are you? _

 

  1. _AND ALSO, FUCKING INSENSITIVE._



 

You look over again. He scowls, but only half-heartedly, which you’ll take as a good sign.

 

See? This is nice.

 

_ JUST TO BE CLEAR, I STILL HATE YOUR GUTS. _

 

Okay. Not nice. That’s fine. You talk some more, regardless. You almost snicker once.

 

Chemistry goes fine. Art goes fine. Physics goes fine. English goes a special kind of awful. So, the campus is pretty damn small, right? There’s maybe two places to hang out, and one of those is a library that you don’t want to get banned from quite yet. So you went to scout out some places to go on break. You were looking for somewhere isolated. A low roof, a back park, something like that. You found both, but by that time you’d figured out why everyone was in the library. It’s still cold. You’d think that the sun would have come out by now, but the poor fucker is probably living with low-key anxiety having just moved to a predominantly conservative neighborhood, rendering any progress he might have made towards ripping off the band-aid obsolete, because you have not seen hide nor hair of that son of a bitch. 

 

That got away from you.

 

Anyway. It’s cold, let’s leave it at that. You retreat indoors to look for somewhere warmer to hide. Good news, you found somewhere warm and secluded. Bad news, it was a maintenance closet. Maintenance-closet-ness aside, you were pretty damn proud of yourself. This particular closet was right next to the central heating.

 

So far so good.

 

Your feet are slowly going numb cramped against the rusty sink, but you’re warm and alone and that was the goal. You put your earbuds in and watch your feet push the sink pipe back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over and over again. Something is digging into the thin skin of your lower back. Something pings on your phone. Eurrgh. Please don’t be Rose. Please don’t be Rose. Please don’t be--it isn’t Rose. Dodged a bullet, there. It’s uh. Karkat. Yeah. Okay. You open up the chat window.

 

_ IS YOUR RINGTONE REALLY THE SONG FROM THE HE-MAN THING? _

 

_ gasp. i would never lie to you. _

 

_ MY INTERNAL EAR CANAL FEELS LIKE IT’S SLOWLY MELTING OUT OF MY HEAD, AND DRIPPING, DISGUSTINGLY, TO THE FLOOR BELOW. IT IS THAT BAD.  _

 

_ dont tell me you hadnt watched it before today. _

 

_ … _

 

_ holy mother of fuck how did you miss that. it was practically the basis for the entire rickroll genre. its got its own locally funded commemorative museum overflowing with 90s shit and surround sound private theater viewings of he-mans shittily animated chiseled mug. you uncultured swine. you uncultured fucking swine. _

 

You hate that you are genuinely aggravated by this. But seriously. Who hasn’t watched that video?

 

…

 

The answer to that, as you are well aware, is many people indeed. You text back, checking your sentence for errors before you send. The care that you find yourself putting into messages for someone you barely know catches you off guard a little, and your hand freezes on the send button. A nagging thought in the back of your head tugs at your attention, like one of Rose’s text messages. Annoying, cynical, and impossible to ignore for long. Hell, now that you think of it, your conscience sounds a lot like Rose, a fact that you’re sure the real Rose would get a kick out of.

 

_ This is still Mississippi, Dave. I hate to use a crude expression, but I would advise you to ‘watch your ass’ as it were.  _

 

Yeah, that sounds like something she’d say. You miss your fucking sister. You should probably talk to her when you get--

 

A creaking joint sends a bucket of ice-cold water racing down your spine. You feel yourself petrify as the door to the maintenance closet opens--painfully slowly--and your doom rushes towards you in a wave of fear and fight-or-flight reflexes. The person who opened the door stands illuminated in shadow. You look up and keep your facial expression very far from your emotional state. They switch the dingy light bulb, and even with your glasses your retinas seize up from the sudden light. The man, for you can now see it is a man, leans down in your face, carrying with him a strong smell of cigarette smoke and… licorice? He gazes at you with a surprisingly neutral expression and scratches his stubble. 

 

“Kid.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Why. Why are you in my closet.”

 

“Dunno.” He heaves a heavy sigh and reaches over you to grab a mop. Then he crouches down to your eye level and stares right through your shades.

 

“If I ever find you. Anywhere on this campus. That you are not supposed to be. I am going to stab you right in the damn appendix. Take you to the health room. And say it was an accident.”

 

He looks dead serious. You scramble to your feet and haul ass out of there.

 

That was fun. Silently swearing to yourself to never enter a cleaning closet ever again you slump down on a bench, absently flipping your knife over in your palm to soothe your nerves. This school, man. This fucking school. You have been scared or running almost your entire time here. Your chill is dead. Your chill is so far past dead that the light from dead will take four million years to reach the earth. The Strider brand is drying up, stocks are down, we had to lay off our Pennsylvania location, etc. etc. You can’t even finish that analogy, and when Dave Strider cannot make an analogy last at least five sentences it is a sad day indeed. A soft fragment of something you’re pretty sure is Evanescence plinks from your phone. Rose’s ringtone. No more putting this off, you suppose.

 

Karkat texts you. Safe, for now.

 

_ SORRY ABOUT YOUR FACE. THAT BRUISE LOOKS FUCKING DISGUSTING. _

 

You laugh shakily.


	7. Chapter 7: Karkat Vantas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so uh have some headcanons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait folks but here's kanaya emoting

 

“Remind me again, Karkat, why we’re doing this.”

 

“Kanaya, I’ve been over this a million fucking times. I don’t like people to be able to trace my IP connection.”

 

“I am almost positive that your statement is entirely incorrect in its usage of technological terminology, but I am prepared to let it slide. What I will not let slide, however, is how ashamed I am of myself for facilitating your various phobias.”

 

“They are not fucking phobias! Phobias are irrational fears! My fears are rational! And thus not fucking phobias!”

 

“As I have told you many times before, the average person is not capable of hacking into your phone. 

 

“Well what about the other people, huh? The people who aren’t fucking average?” She turns around and glances at you. Her green eyes glitter with amusement through her heavy makeup.

 

“I thought Mississippi was  _ boring,  _ Karkat. Surely you’d never meet  _ anyone _ interesting  _ here.”  _ You debate whether or not she’s being sarcastic for a moment. Probably, yes. You sigh.

 

“You don’t get it, Kanaya. This place is fucking desolate.” Even Dave Strider. He’s cardboard too, just slightly more interesting cardboard.

 

You’re still upset with Sollux and Terezi for moving out of town like they did. They were the last to leave when all your friends were fucking off into the distance, and they definitely hurt the most. I mean, it’s only a forty-five minute drive, but it feels like longer since they don’t go to the same school anymore. You brought your book with you to read on the trip, despite your concern for ruining it with puke once Kanaya’s driving inevitably causes a tangible response. And speaking of vomit, this character development has more in common with a trailer park sewage system than any coherent literary plot device. You throw the book down in disgust, both at the content and the fact that you are reading it. “Karkat.”

 

“What?”

 

“We’re here.” You glance out the window to glimpse the familiar house, a plain one-story building situated in the middle of a flat lawn, unremarkable except for the garish teal and mustard paint job. This was courtesy of Sollux and Terezi’s dedication to their respective weird color fetishes and their--well, Terezi’s--mom’s lack of concern for anything other than the bare fucking necessities of concern. Terezi is on the lawn, sunbathing on a beach chair in a teal swimsuit. She has a red slushie in her hand and she’s grinning like she’s having the time of her life. It’s probably worth noting that it’s below fifty degrees out, and the day is cloudy and blue. Her sightless eyes stare directly into the cold, pale sun. You get out of the car, slamming the door loudly so she can hear you. Her head turns almost imperceptibly, and she grins devilishly at the origin of the noise. She swings her bony legs onto the lawn and strides toward you, slushie in hand.

 

“Karkat. Long time, no sniff. Hey, Kanaya.” She slurps her straw to accentuate her statement. “We’ve got leftover pizza inside if you’re hungry.” You open your mouth to ask something and she anticipates your question. “Sorry Karkat. No olives.” She bares her teeth at you in a slightly threatening smile, the red rubber bands around her brackets and lacing together her jaw glinting with spit. 

 

You love her so much.

 

“It’s nice to see you too, Terezi.” Kanaya says, a bit icily. “Although I must express some concern at staring directly at the sun, even on a day like this.”

 

“Aww. Thanks for caring, Kanaya. But what’s the worst that can happen?” She flicks up her sunglasses to reveal her dead, burnt-out eyes. “I scorch my retinas?” She waggles her eyebrows and cackles. You and Kanaya exchange concerned glances. Terezi turns on her heel and walks toward the house, dumping the unfinished red slushie in a trash can outside the front door. She swings a bony arm around your neck. “Never as good as the real thing, is it?” You refrain from asking what the ‘real thing’ is. She brushes her feet unceremoniously on the carpet and calls into the house “OH SOOOOLLLLLLLLUUUUUUX!”

 

“What.” Sollux is currently parked on the overstuffed pumpkin orange couch in the living room, eating cereal and playing what appears to be Mario Kart. Against himself. He looks up, stupid glasses resting askew on the disaster that is his face. “Oh. Hey KK.” Spotting Kanaya, he remarks “Hi mom.” Kanaya sighs and rolls her eyes. You grab a slice of pizza. Yuck. Anchovies. Terezi puts her hand on your face to gauge your reaction and snorts when you make an exaggerated expression of disgust. You’ve been friends for a long time.

 

“Where’s Latula?”

 

“Out fucking Captor 2.0, probably.” Terezi snorts. “God, I still can’t figure out how you guys get action. You are the lamest people I know, and that is  _ saying something. _ ”

 

“I still think it’s weird that he’s hooking up with her.” you put in, flopping down next to Sollux. (And knocking over his cereal bowl, much to his chagrin.)

 

“Obviously she has no such qualms.” says Kanaya thoughtfully. 

 

“As long as I can’t hear them!” Says Terezi brightly.

 

“Yuck, TZ. Yuck.” Sollux puts in, stumbling a bit on the ‘z’. Terezi makes a noise that sounds suspiciously orgasmic, and Sollux throws a pillow at her. It beans her right in the head. She goes down giggling. 

 

“So Sollux.” You start.

 

“Can I help you.” he snarks. 

 

“I mean, yeah. Actually. I need you to work your asshole magic on my phone. I don’t want people to start prying through my  _ personal files.” _

 

“You mean your slash fic?” Kanaya says smugly. 

 

“Kanaya, I have been over this so many  _ fucking _ times with you. Slash fic is exploitative wish fulfillment. What I write, Kanaya, is  _ fucking literature.  _ And even if is was slash fic, I wouldn’t keep it on my phone because I’m not a FUCKING tool!” 

 

You probably shouldn’t have said that as loud as you did. Terezi starts laughing, breaking the silence.

 

“Never change, Karkat.” she says between choked spasms of laughter. You look at Sollux, still anticipating a response. He’s… still playing Mario Kart. 

 

“Sollux, you fucking douche. Were you even listening?” 

 

“Uh-huh. Just ignoring you.” 

 

“Sollux, please.” He drops both of his controllers and rolls his head to look at you.

 

“Karkat, for fuck’s sake, take a pill. I’ll do it.” You visibly brighten up. “For five bucks.” Of fucking course. 

 

“Fine.” You rummage through your wallet and extract a very crumply five.

 

“Sweeeeeeet!” He says, lisping heavily. You swear he does it on purpose. He grabs it and sticks it in his… sock. You hand over your phone and he starts tapping away with his thumbs. You don’t even want to know how he knows your password. “Okay. I’m going to need a little bit of info here. Full name.”

 

“Karkat Vantas.” He looks at you, disappointed. 

 

“What, no embarrassing middle name?” You shake your head pissily. 

 

“Fine. Blood type?” 

 

“For fuck’s sake, Sollux. I have no fucking clue.”

 

“Okay, Netflix password.” 

 

“You shit. Now you’re screwing with me.” He grins, and flicks a piercing with his tongue. You forgot he got snakebites last year. You also forgot just how nerdy they look. The answer is very nerdy indeed.

 

“Yep.” He answers brightly. You turn to Terezi.

“Is he manic right now?” you ask. Terezi scoffs at you, distractedly twirling her cane.

 

“Wow. Rude!” she exclaims, sounding more gleeful than affronted. You absently watch Sollux struggle with a USB cord.

 

“And done.” He hands you back your phone. “Your firewall is now hot shit.”

 

“Oh. Thanks.” Terezi leans over your phone, trying to stick her face between you and the screen. She can’t even see anymore, and she still does this to fuck with you. 

 

“So. Karkitty--” (you make a noise somewhat akin to a pelican in a blender) “What brought this on?”

 

“First of all, no--”

 

“No Nepeta names. I knoooooooow. But  _ really. _ You’re always like this. Something weird happens, your balls retreat into your lungs, and you barricade your door with another chair and buy fifty security cameras.”

 

“First of all, no--”

 

“Jabs at your horrifically shrunken testicles, I knoooooooow.” You give her an evil glare. 

 

“That is  _ not _ what I was going to say, you piece of shit. And also,  _ nothing fucking happen--”  _ Terezi switches gears at the speed of light. 

 

“Kanaya, what happened?” Kanaya looks up from her phone, putting away the lipstick she was reapplying.

 

“I forced Karkat to make a friend and he’s worried about opening up.” Kanaya puts simply. “I really need to get him into therapy so he can talk about it to a professional.” Sollux snorts.

 

“Take it from me, mom. Therapy is like eighty-nine percent placebo effect. Those pills don’t do  _ shit.” _ You wince. ‘Shit’ is easily the worst word to pronounce with a lisp, you think to yourself. His character on the screen crashes into a wall. “Aw, piss.” You stand corrected. 

 

“I find that hard to believe.” Kanaya says with a frown. Personally, you think she’s probably right and Sollux is just being a little bitch, but fuck if you’re not going to be contrary about it. 

 

“The problem with you, Kanaya,” you say, “Is that you have too much faith in the system.”

 

“And the problem with you, Karkat,” she responds, “Is that you don’t have enough.”

 

“You’re both wrong.” says Terezi. “Karkat hates the system but still conforms to it because he doesn’t have anything else. Kanaya feels obligated to love the system but deep down wants to wreck shit. Isn’t that right, Kanaya?”

 

“That’s…” you start.

 

“Completely incorrect.” Kanaya says sharply, snapping her compact shut. 

 

Terezi grins. She’s pretty when she smiles. Her sunglasses hike up her face, and her eyes become slits. Her lips stretch into something too big for her face. Her red cornrows waggle. Pretty. Like a nuclear bomb. “Gotcha.”

 

You leave after that. Terezi can be a bit much sometimes, and you suspect that hanging out with Vriska lately hasn’t changed that. They’re both...intense, to say the least. Always just a bit too manic, a bit too merciless. They’re always primed to self destruct. If someone asked Terezi to jump off a bridge, you think she’d do it. That scares you. 

 

You wish she’d take her prescription. 

 

“I’m sorry for walking out like that, Karkat.” Kanaya starts. “I know you love Terezi, but she lacks…”

 

“Subtlety?” 

 

“Precisely. She is quite the catalyst. Always picking at her scabs.” You’re not sure if she means this literally or figuratively. Terezi has been known to do both. Also cracking her toes. Kanaya starts again, her eyes steely. “She doesn’t understand. I have responsibilities, standards, I need to help. I have to help people, Karkat. I can’t just…” You look up in alarm. Kanaya looks close to panic. Her hands knot and unknot. You lean into her shoulder and rub her arms with your hands. Her breathing slows.

 

“Figure it out later, Kanaya. Right now, you need to fucking drive.”

 

“Drive. I can drive.”

 

“Barely.” you say. You are rewarded with a weak smile. She scrapes a bit of mud off of her flats on the tire of the truck, and gets in with some difficulty. You get in on the passenger side and shut the door with a bang. Kanaya yanks the stick and slams the gas, leaving your stomach somewhere on Terezi’s lawn. “Jesus F. Christ--FUCK! Kanaya!” She pulls out of the driveway like she’s trying to break an axle, and you unabashedly scream like a little girl. “Brake! SHIT! MARYAM, FUCKING BRAKE!” She brakes. You slump back into your chair, feeling like someone strapped you on the bottom of a rollercoaster and started it on double speed.

 

“Maryam.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Promise me that the next time we buy a car, It’ll be something manageable. Like...like a Prius. Or a Camry. Fucking yes, Kanaya, a Camry would be perfect. Just. Never a fucking truck, okay? Never again.”

 

“Never again.” She agrees. 

 

“Also you cannot drive for shit.” Kanaya lets loose a rare and surprisingly un-ladylike snort. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless them all especially fucking kanaya
> 
> also comment please i crave validation


	8. Chapter 8: Dave Strider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i put off writing this because i hate writing about this particular subject, but i had to otherwise it would be erasure so. There will probably be flashbacks to explain dave's home dynamic in more detail, but these are the basics.

_ jesus rose. for the last fucking time i dont want to hear about your lesbian crushes. if you wax poetic for some chicks neck one more time i am going to post your slash fic. _

_ You wouldn’t. _

 

_ rose i am so sick of hearing about clavicles you have no idea.  _

 

_ Am I that bad? _

 

_ yes. _

 

_ I will try to be more concise in my descriptions of beautiful women in the future.  _

 

_ thx sis.  _

 

_ No problem. _

 

_ hey uh do you believe that stuff happens for a reason _

 

_ What a vaguely philosophical and awkwardly worded question. I do. Why? _

 

_ so im at a new school right _

 

_ I am aware. _

 

_ there’s this one guy who i keep running into all the fucking time and we are talking cosmic scale levels of coincidence. thoughts? _

 

_ Realistically? Humorous providence.  _

 

_ what no prying questions about my sexuality who are you and what have you done with rose _

 

_ Theorizing about your possible repressed attraction to men has lost its appeal in recent revelations about your upbringing. _

 

_ suggestion: can we not _

 

_ Fine. Roxanne’s pissed about you switching schools. She’s threatening to call her lawyer. _

 

_ jesus that man needs a raise  _

 

_ Seconded. It’s not like you haven’t switched schools before. I’m convinced she’s only doing it to make a scene with your, quote, “brother” unquote.  _

 

_ oh my god can you stop calling him that its so fucking weird _

 

_ Dave, I refer to my mother by her first name and stopped capitalizing ‘god’ in third grade. I think we’ve already established that I have severe problems with authority.  _

 

_ third grade holy shit _

 

_ I was a mature eight year old.  _

 

A car rushes past you, coming frighteningly close to the shallow curb you’re walking on. The driver leans out the window and yells back at you with slightly slurred speech. You catch the words ‘cunt’ and ‘dickshit’. Kudos for creativity, you suppose. You flip him off, but your heart isn’t in it. After he’s gone, you make sure to walk further away from the street. 

 

_ Dave? Is something wrong? _

 

_ nah its cool some drunk asshole just almost roadkilled my ass _

 

She starts to respond, but you don’t read her message.

 

_ its fine rose i made a quick recovery chill _

 

_ Sure, Dave. Extremely plausible.  _

 

_ god you sound exactly like dirk _

 

_ Don’t remind me.  _

 

You see the motorcycle parked in your driveway and almost drop your phone. Shiiiiiiit. He’s not supposed to be home yet. He’s supposed to be gone on a trip. All of the little nerves in your head are doing that thing where everybody’s in the club having a fucking kickass time and someone turns on the lights. 

 

_ sry rose bye _

 

_ Wait, hold on. _

 

You don’t ‘wait, hold on.’ Carefully pocketing your phone, your eyes flick to the top window of your house. Dark. He’s not working then. He’s going to be in the living room. Your shit is fucked. You almost take out your pocket knife, but stop midway to the handle, awkwardly closing your fist instead. He hasn’t been home since the week before last, so you have no idea what to expect. Dirk isn’t home either, so you have absolutely no buffer. 

 

You should probably just get this over with. 

 

As soon as you open the door, the subtle scent of skunk and alcohol wafts under your nostrils. Your eyes water a bit, and you blink rapidly to keep them from tearing up. You hear voices coming from the living room, which is more than a little odd, as you can’t remember the last time you had company that was for talking. Someone laughs tinnily, and something in you ices over a little. You stand in the doorway, watching the two people in your living room. Your brother is reclining on the futon, the top of his pants unbuttoned and his shirt collar lying oddly flat, flicking ashes from his cigarette onto the table a few inches away from the ashtray. The pot part of the evening must be over, then. His glasses are up on his head, which you would be way more surprised about if you weren’t considering present company. 

 

Perched on a stool from the kitchen sits Roxanne Lalonde, pouring herself wine in a coffee mug with your first (and only) christmas card printed on the chipping face. She takes a sip and wipes her lipstick off the rim with an embroidered handkerchief. Her entire existence feels out of place, and her monochrome cocktail dress looks like a personal affront. The only speck of color that interrupts is a noticeable red wine stain on her shoulder that no one seems to have tried to clean. When she sees you, her eyes narrow and her face freezes into a grimace of red lipstick and straight teeth.

 

“David! How lovely to see you again.” she smiles at you, her teeth slightly pink from wine. Your brother turns to acknowledge you almost imperceptibly, and flicks his cigarette with his thumb. His face is expressionless. 

 

You struggle to smile as Roxanne picks her way across the room, swaying a bit on her stilettos. She swings her hips when she walks, unconcerned that there’s not much to swing, and hooks an elbow around your neck, crushing you in a hug that feels overdone. You flick your eyes to your brother for help. His eyes, undefended by shades, bore into you in an expression you can only describe as petulance, and he takes a long, slow drag. Roxanne clamps her hot pink nails around your shoulders and thrusts you away, evidently taking you in. Her mouth makes a simpering shape. 

 

“Look how tall you’re getting! Derick, isn’t he  _ taaaaaall?”  _ Her speech is slurred. Your brother nods slowly.

 

“Yep. Pretty tall, Rox.” He sounds bored, but she doesn’t seem to notice in her current state.

 

“And so  _ skinny! _ Well you know teenage boys, Derick.” She laughs again. “They shoot up like beanpoles! Why, I remember when you were  _ this tall!” _ She uses her bony hand to illustrate a point somewhere above her knee. You don’t point out that when you were that tall, she was still legally your mother. Her voice suddenly turns teasing, sharp. “You’ve been feeding him, right?” A bolt of fear runs through you. You look underfed. That’s bad. That’s really bad. You don’t even have an excuse prepared for if somebody notices. Your brother seems unbothered. 

 

“Sure, Rox.” She laughs again.

 

“Of  _ course  _ you have.” She sounds sarcastic. She picks up an impossibly tiny white handbag with a dainty swooping motion and staggers to the door, narrowly avoiding an intoxication-related accident when she descends the stairs. “Well! It was lovely to see both of you!” She gets in her car with some difficulty and pulls out a little too much to the left, taking out your mailbox. You wince. Once she swerves out of sight, you turn on your brother. He puts out his cigarette on the table.

 

“What the fuck was she doing here? And why did she bolt like a fucking shrew?”

 

He shrugs. “She’s your mom. She’s paying for your college. The least I can do is buy her vodka.”

 

“Jesus shit. Are you screwing her?” He shrugs again. “What the fuck?” He scowls at the coffee table. “Is it so fucking hard to cut her out? 

 

“Sit down, Dave.” 

 

“No! Fuck this!

 

“Da-ave.” His head snaps up, and his eyes somehow find yours. Your gaze flicks away, dodging the eye contact. He says it with two syllables, stretching out the ‘a’ the same way he used to do when he bought you presents. You hear Rose in your head.

 

_ He’s doing it to remind your brain of the times when he was kind to you in order to convince you that he is good. It’s theme manipulation. He’s manipulating you using audio cues. It’s a game, it’s in every psychology book ever written, it’s Pavlovian theory. Don’t respond. He’s trying to put you off-kilter.  _

 

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

 

You open your mouth to speak, but his cadence turns malicious. “Sit. Down.”

 

His voice is deathly quiet. All the fear you’d been ignoring for the past few minutes rushes towards you in a white hot burst. You can feel your blood pump in your veins. Your eyes flick to the sword hanging above what you generously refer to as the mantle. He notices your gaze and his entire face hardens. “I said sit down, not ogle the fucking katana.”

 

You sit down. 

 

He lights another cigarette and ignores you for a bit. After a while, he says he’s going to go run some errands. He says it like he’ll be back in an hour, but it’ll probably be more like a month. 

 

You get some apple juice.

 

Now would be a great time for some exposition. Too bad you’re not a compulsive oversharer. 

 

Your phone pings again. Evanescence. It’s a call. You pick up slowly.

 

“Dave.” Rose’s voice is wavery, and a hot rush of shame floods over you.

 

“Rose. Hey, uh. Sorry about that. Something came up.” She lets out a sigh, and you can hear her struggling to keep her voice level.

 

“Dave, was it--” her voice cuts to a flat, angry monotone. “Was it your brother?” She doesn’t even wait for an answer and cuts straight to rapid swearing. You reel back from the phone, flinching from the venom that seems to seep through the phone and cut right into you. 

 

“Dave? Dave!”

 

“Shit, Rose.” Her side of the line goes quiet. 

 

“I’m sorry, Dave. That was insensitive of me--”

 

“No! No. It’s fine. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.” She sighs.

 

“Did you use the knife?” You look down at the pocketknife in your lap. You don’t remember bringing it out, but it sure seems like a thing that happened. Carefully turning it over, you rub your thumb over Rose’s sharpie handwriting on the red case.  _ For Dave. _

 

“I forgot about the knife.” You say simply. Rose laughs weakly.

 

“Dave, I don’t know what you expect me to do for you if you don’t do what I prescribe.”

 

“You’re not even a real therapist.”

 

“If I’m not a real therapist, why do I have this copy of Freud’s Biggest Dick Jokes?” You can almost hear the smirk in her voice. She’s trying to divert the attention away from the situation at hand with a tried-and-true subject of discussion to calm you down. 

 

_ Pavlovian theory. _

 

It works.

 

“I sent you that.” You try to keep from laughing, but you’re pretty sure she catches on anyways.

 

“It remains one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever received.” 

 

“No way.”

 

“Yes! Do you know what my mom got me for that birthday? Floral perfume.” You make a noise of incredulity. “Yes. Floral fucking perfume.” You can hear the residual tremble in her voice. She’s scared, really scared, but she’s putting on a brave face for you. You still feel shaky and weak, but warmth seeps into your chest and spreads over you like water. You manage to laugh.

 

“God, does she even know you?”

 

“Sometimes, I wonder.”

 

“Speaking of your mom, she was here. Like, here. In this house. I think she was visiting bro, but I’m not sure exactly.” Rose is silent.

 

“She was there? What was she doing?”

 

“Drinking.”

 

“Typical.” Rose mutters darkly.

 

“She took out my mailbox on her way out.” You say, looking out in the driveway. The mailbox is absolutely wasted. The little box and the weird red flaggy-looking thign (misspelling intentional) have been crushed into sad fragments on the asphalt. “Like,  _ really _ took out my mailbox.”

 

“Expect a two-thousand dollar deposit and a box of chocolates with an attached apology note.” Rose says sardonically. “God knows she could use the distraction. So I take it she’s not suing him anymore?”

 

“Fuck if I know. They were looking pretty friendly on my end. And I mean that in a subtle nod to to the fact that they may be banging each other. Actually, screw that. Definitely banging each other.” Rose sighs.

 

“Did he actually do anything?” 

 

“No. Do you mean, like, did I see them make out or anything? No. Ew.”

 

“Dave. Did he do anything to  _ you _ .”

 

“Oh! No. He was just an asshole. Nothing new. I was kind of being a bitch about it too, so I guess that’s fair.”

 

“Dave.” You know where she’s going with this. You bite your lip.

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

“Good. Remember to use that pocket knife.”

 

“Yeah. I’ll do that--” You’re cut off by the obnoxious blaring of your ringtone. You step back, He-man ringing in your ears, and reject the call.

 

“Jesus. Sorry about that, Rose. Some asshole just called me in the middle of the oh God it was Karkat.”

 

“Who’s Karka--”

 

“Sorry! Bye! This was fun!” You hang up on Rose and check your calling history. Pinning your phone between your shoulder and your ear, you scramble over the counter separating the living room from the kitchen and frantically try to remember which drawer you stuffed the sharpies in. You pull your phone out from under your ear and call back the number. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Sup.” Awesome. Totally nailed it.

 

“Why the fuck didn’t you pick up the first time, you piece of dog shit?” Oh. Okay. Not awesome. You did not nail it. 

 

“I was talking to my--” Don’t say sister. “Sister.” Goddammit.

 

“Your sister? Wait, like, on the phone?” This is not going well. “You have a sister?” Scratch that, this is going horribly.

 

“Yes. My. Twin. Sister. On the phone. She lives in Georgetown. Which is Texas but for rich people.” What the fuck are you doing.

 

“Why the fuck does your twin sister live in Georgetown when you live in--”

 

“It’s fine don’t ask.” You’ve got this you’ve got this you’ve got this--

 

“Are your parents divorced?” You don’t got this. 

 

“No! Yes! Maybe?” You’re dissociating so hard right now. 

 

“How do you not fucking know if your parents are fucking divorced?!”

 

“They were never married?”

 

“Wait, are your parents dead?”

 

“No! Kind of?”

 

“What? How does that even, what does that fucking, how does that--” He takes a breath. It’s only been two minutes and he’s already done with your bullshit. You think it might be a new record. 

 

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you about it.” You mutter. Karkat starts to say something, but you cut him off. “Don’t ask. Please.” Your tone is pleading, and he must pick up on it.

 

“Okay.”

 

“And there you have it. Friendship checkmate.” You quip, switching your phone to your other shoulder to grab a Coke. 

 

“We’re not friends.”

 

“Yet.” You say. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

 

“Dave. Do you know why I called you.” 

 

“Mmmmmmm…” You fish for any reason he might be calling you other than to try to burst your eardrums. “...nope.”

 

“Math project, idiot!” Your stomach drops like you’ve been dropkicked. 

 

“Oh shit. Come over.” He makes a sputtering noise.

 

“Excuse me? What?” His voice cracks a few octaves. You absently play with the tab on your soda. 

 

“It’s a group project! Get over here! I’m only like…” You pull some numbers out of your ass. “....four blocks away, tops.” He starts to argue, but trails off into a plethora of weird doubtful noises. “C’mon. It’s not hard. You just get up, walk out the door, and go to a place.”

 

“I... don’t really... go out. Often.” He finally manages to get out. 

 

“It’s not even going out though. It’s just going to a different fucking house! Here, since it’s apparently such a fucking issue, I’ll come over to your place. Where do you live.” You uncap your sharpie again.

 

“No! That’s! Not! No! Don’t come over! I’ll come over!” His voice reaches cracks of anxiety previously unknown to man. You frown at the phone.

 

“You okay, man?” 

 

“Yes! I will be there! Shortly!” He hangs up. You sit there in dead silence for a few seconds. Your phone rings again.

 

“Where do you live.” You snort into your soda.


	9. Chapter 9 holy shit i just realized it puts an automatic chapter 9 and im just being repetitive i need to go back and fix this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *waggles eyebrows* this is for you gylbane

You sit there for about five minutes, staring at your phone lying placidly on the table, trying to mentally sync into a timeline where that didn’t happen. Kananya breaks your line of sight on her way to the electric kettle, and you make a half-hearted noise of indignation. She scoffs and bops you on the head with a dish towel. You bite your lip as she fills the kettle, all the time peering at your phone with an expression of hawkish professional interest. You give her a poisonous glare, and she cocks an eyebrow.

 

“Someone sure is...” Her eyebrows waggle to the heavens. 

 

“Don’t you dare fucking say it.”

 

Her smile is dazzlingly shit-eating. “Crabby.”

 

Your head makes intentional contact with the kitchen counter. You get up slowly and pick up your bag.

 

“Going somewhere?” Kanaya remarks. You knit and unknit your hands. Kanaya’s voice pitches a bit as she tries again. “Karkat? Are you going somewhere?” You turn around.

 

“Yeah. I’m actually going to a--” Not a friend. “--an acquaintance's house for a group project.” She nods sagely.

 

“Have fun with Dave, Karkat.” You groan as she snickers into her tea. 

 

“You’re a real shitty sister, you know that, right?” She walks over to you and you watch her hips out of the corner of your eyes, barely moving under layers of heavy fabric. She passes you your phone, and takes a good five seconds to press it into your palm. 

 

The gesture is careful and oddly comforting. 

 

“Can’t forget that, now can we?” She says lightly.

 

“Jesus. I’m not going to war.” 

 

“As the great American poet of the nineteenth century, Tina Fey, famously asserted: Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chamber of your own soul.” She deadpans. “I am fairly sure Tina Fey said that.” You snort.

 

“Nice quote though.”

 

“I like it.”

 

“Mmm. Bye.” You hike up your backpack and wave goodbye to Dolores on your way out. She’s staring into the fog again. She doesn’t wave back. A wisp of sadness curls in you, and you look pointedly at the horizon like you might look at Kanaya after an awful joke. 

You like to tell people that one of your great ambitions is to deck God in the face. A good, hard punch to the creator of the universe. Just once. For what he did to Dolores.

 

All the way to the driveway, the grass and wildflowers come up to your knee. At first, you attempt to find a shorter path, or some place where your legs don’t end up with chigger bites to high heaven, but eventually you resign yourself to having to move your feet like a fucking egret. At least you’re wearing long pants. You finally come out to clear pavement, start down the road, and immediately notice the wreckage. Someone has apparently been hitting the whiskey because that mailbox is whole-shittedly obliterated. You curiously rub the toe of your shoe over the prominent skid marks marring the road, and rubberneck a bit at the window. The house is pretty trashy. You note the piles of scrap wood and miscellaneous paneling propped in the yard, and the disheartening scrubbiness of the front lawn. In a bizarre anachronism, the front stoop sports an immaculate welcome mat and a suspiciously wizard-y garden gnome. 

 

You check the address on your arm and glance down at the mangled lettering on the mailbox. Yeah, that makes sense. 

 

Your hand nervously adjusts the bag on your shoulder and you move to knock. The door swings open before you can balance yourself, and you get a whole zero-point-two seconds of moon-white chest dead at eye level before the screen door slams in your face. Someone inside is cussing vehemently. 

 

You blink a few times.

 

The door opens again, this time with an attempt at formality in the form of a white shirt, halfway on. You stare at the five inches of exposed midriff for a hot second and quickly switch your gaze to the ongoing struggle in more safe-for-work regions. He’s having problems with the neckhole. Presumably because of the shades. Eventually you reach out a hand for the top of the shirt and yank it down unceremoniously, ignoring the clatter of plastic as the glasses fall to the ground. 

 

Dave’s hair has noticeably deviated from the stiff peaks of hair gel that you’re used to, and there’s a large spike in his bangs. You pretend not to notice, and instead focus on his face. Without the glasses dominating his entire facial structure, you are suddenly aware that he’s probably some variety of east asian somewhere down the line. He’s pointedly not looking at you. You incline your head to get a better look at his face, but he snaps back like he’s been slapped. 

 

Which you can guiltily assert might have something to do with you.

 

He extends his hand. “Shades. I still need ‘em.” You crouch down to pick them up and put them in his hand, and an unexplainable urge to curl his fingers over them like Kanaya did with your phone is swiftly ignored. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he doesn’t release his face until his face is safely covered.

 

What an ass. He stands there for a solid minute, awkwardly rocking back and forth on his feet. You clear your throat.

 

“Thanks for putting a fucking shirt on, you heathen.” He says nothing. “Dave.” Still nothing. “This is the part where you invite me inside.” He snaps out of it.

 

“Shit. Sorry. You can come on in.” You do so.

 

“Dave.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Why does this place smell like pot.” He makes a nervous hissing noise through his teeth.

 

“My brother just left.”

 

“Oh.” You turn your head to look at the room. There are no lights on, and there are only a few slivers of light that betray the afternoon sun outside. Boxes cover the floor, most closed, but some in various stages of unpackage. The main light sources of the room are the monolithic electronics, all of them top of the line. There is a katana on the wall. You walk over to it. An Xbox glows softly by the futon, paused in the middle of some shitty skating game. Dave is looking for something in the fridge. It has suspicious dents and scratches on the outside. In fact, there are a lot of suspicious dents and scratches in the house. 

 

Dave had a scar on his stomach. Your head reels. 

 

“Don’t touch that.” You jump. He must have walked over to you when you were spacing out over the katana. You turn around to face him, and he dumps a bag of chips into your arms. “C’mon. You don’t want to work in here.” He’s right.  You don’t want to work in here. It’s creepy and it also smells like pot. You have a hard enough time with math as it is. 

 

He walks to the back of the room, leading you off into a tiny corridor. If he’s kidnapping you, this would be a very effective way to do it.

 

You’re not paranoid. 

 

“Bathroom.” He states, jabbing his thumb at a door to the side of the hallway. The sudden statement reminds you very acutely of how jarringly quiet he is. His nervous chattiness has been stripped away, revealing something sharp, rigid, and achingly brittle. “And my room.” He gestures to a rather unimpressive door set in the back of the hallway. More dents and scratches, this time in the form of deep purposeful gashes down the length of the door, the majority of which are covered by a long wall mirror. Dave notices the big spike of hair sticking out on the back of his head and hurries to fix it. You snicker, and he gives you a cold glare. Or you assume it’s a cold glare. Honestly, fuck those shades right in the ass, they cover a solid seventy-five percent of his face and you can’t glean the barest semblance of expression from them. Which is probably the point.

 

He opens the door and you step in. The entire atmosphere shifts. This room has a window, and the light and cold air from outside slam into every cranny of the room. You notice more weird techno shit perched precariously on a makeshift table, and almost trip over the wires and cables crisscrossing the floor like nerves. You recognize mics and huge speaker boxes and it clicks in your head that most of this is music equipment. There’s another half-assed cinderblock table thing underneath the window, this time scattered with expensive-looking photography stuff that you would feel like a pretentious douche using. Next to that, there’s a small cabinet filled with jars and blocks of clear glass. You walk over, curious, and reel back in disgust when you see the scorpions. 

 

“I see you’re a fellow connoisseur.” Dave snarks from his desk. He’s making this weird snotty lady voice that you think might be an impression of someone he knows. 

 

“Who keeps dead shit in their bedroom, Dave?” You round on him accusingly. “Are you a fucking serial killer?” He shrugs, and turns back to his enormous and heavily branded computer monitor. 

 

“Of scorpions? Yes.” 

 

“Oh, very funny, smartass.” You walk over to the desk and but both your hands on the top of his chair. He jumps, and you derive a little bit of savage pleasure. Then you remember the way the scratches on the door looked like someone was trying to break it down, and your hands drop to your sides real fast. He swivels around to face you, his legs straddling the chair so his chin and arms rest on the chair back. You perch on the end of his bed to face him.

 

“So.” He starts.

 

“What?”

 

“We came here to do math, right?” He nods at your backpack. “Where’s the fuckin’ math?”

 

You blink a couple of times, and hastily justify your actions. “Oh. Right.” He pushes up his shades and exhales. 

 

“So how are we getting our information.” he starts. 

 

“Email survey?” 

 

“Cool. Does the school have a directory?” He swivels back around to face the computer.

 

“I think so.” You pull up your laptop, but Dave is already sifting through about twenty tabs on his browser, trying to find the school homepage. He clicks around a couple of times before reaching the phone directory. 

 

“Dave?” He mumbles acknowledgement. “Why do people ask for other people’s numbers if they can just look at the directory?” He turns around and arches his eyebrows so high they mesh with his bangs. 

 

“Because they’re not creepy stalkers.” You swell with indignation. 

 

“I am  _ not  _ a fucking stalker.” He sighs and tilts his head back.

 

“Yeah. You kind of are. I don’t know where you got my locker combination, and honestly I don’t care, but there are better ways to make friends, man.”

 

“It worked, didn’t it?” You spit. He shakes his head slowly.

 

“I mean, yeah. That’s because if I hadn’t I would have wondered about it for the rest of my life. That doesn’t mean you should have done it.” You open your mouth to say something, but he cuts you off. “Just don’t do it. It’s not hard.” 

 

“Okay.” 

 

“See? Easy. Could you pass me a pen?” You shuffle around on the bed and reach for a pen resting on the cinderblock table, almost sitting on a camera. Dave makes a noise of distress and reaches for it, cradling it like a child. You snort, and he shoots you another glare. “Jesus, Karkat. I thought you were cool, but there you go, making fun of little Bobby Jr. like that. C’mon man. He’s just a kid. He’s sensitive. Needs time to mature, figure out who he is, come to terms with his demons. You just set his coming of age back like three years. What kinda person does that? Fuckin’ asshole, that’s who.” Your shoulders shake in silent laughter as Dave struggles to keep a straight face throughout the entire monologue. “Damn, Karkat, this is gonna wreck his self-esteem. His momma’s gonna be so disappointed in my parenting skills.” He’s still going. “Karkat! Jesus, we just went over this. You don’t fucking laugh at Bobby Jr! Get it through your goddamn head! Look, he’s crying. Look what you did.” He’s still cradling the camera like a baby. It’s too much. You’re going to fucking asphyxiate. A loud thump breaches your awareness, and you realize that you’re fallen off the bed. 

 

Dave’s bleached-blonde head pokes into your vision, all the little mussed hairs on the crown of his head outlined in white and gold from the sun of the window. He’s laughing. Sort of. His face is vaguely smile-shaped. He drops the camera on the bed. “You good, man?” You nod a little breathlessly. You think you may have gotten the wind knocked out of you. He helps you up. His hand is pleasantly cool. 

 

The rest of the day passes fast. Dave establishes pretty early on that he works better alone, and since you’re not a huge fan of math, you pretty much let him take over the entire project. He doesn’t complain. You have a sneaking suspicion he enjoys it. Frequently, you ask him if you can do anything to help, and he always says that you’re helping just by being there. 

 

He says silence freaks him out. 

 

You end up on your back on his bed, staring at the posters on his ceiling. Most of them are from some webcomic you’ve never heard of, but some are of bands. (that you’ve also never heard of.) You watch him type, the back of his head lit up by the golden afternoon sun, and compare the image to the shitty polaroids hung on a wire across his room. A half-formed idea pops into your head, and you scrabble for his camera on the shitty table. He starts to turn.

 

“No. Sit down, you fuck. You’re going to screw it up.” He turns back around and resumes work. You turn the camera over a few times, trying to figure out how to use it. Your hands settle naturally on the buttons, and, feeling incredibly stupid, you hold the camera up to your eyes. The lens settles on the scene just like it did in your head. You take the photo. 

 

As soon as he hears the shutter, he turns around. “Karkat.”

 

“Dave.” you deadpan. He rolls his head and presumably his eyes.

 

“Taking pictures of people without asking counts as stalker shit.” You drop the camera.

 

“Okay! Fine! I won’t do it anymore!” He walks over to you and sits across from you on the bed, taking the camera out of his hands to look at the picture. His left eyebrow shoots up into his hair. He rushes over to his table of photography stuff and starts fucking around with cables and usbs, all the while muttering something under his breath. 

 

“What?”

 

“It’s a good picture.” He says simply. He’s taking out bottles of things, plastic trays. He heads to the closet, which you now notice has a curtain where the door should be. He stays there for a few minutes. When he comes out, he wipes his hands on his jeans and sits next to you on the bed. “Karkat, from now on, you take pictures whenever the fuck you want.” He gestures vaguely to the strings of photos suspended on the wire. “Better than that shit.” You frown.

 

“It’s not shit.” He gives you a cynical look.

 

“Yeah, I think it is, actually.” You shake your head again.

“I think the problem is it’s always you taking pictures of yourself. There’s no outside factors.” You swallow. “When-- when I write--” He looks at you strangely. You swallow again. “--it doesn’t turn out right if I just do the same shit every day. I need someone. Or something. Else.”

 

He nods slowly. “That makes sense.” 

 

You leave after that.


	10. Chapter 10

Hello. I would like to preface by first apologizing.

This was intended as a chapter-by-chapter series, but I'm afraid I can't do that anymore. I have a poor habit of constant editing. By going forward with this in the format that I am publishing it, I'm pretty much making a huge fucking mess out of it. :( I want you guys to read it in its entirety. I want to make something complete, instead of publishing it as a story with updates, which is the typical medium here. It's not a narrative that lends itself to an episodic nature, I'm afraid. So I'm not going to upload any more chapters. I am, however, going to publish the entire story as a whole at a later date. Not going to sugarcoat it, It's going to take fucking forever. But I WILL NOT STOP WRITING IT. I owe this story too much. I've worked on it for a very long time, and it's been in the making for about a year now. The story has changed frequently, as have the tone and themes, which is part of why I want to take this fic back to the shop for now.

If you are VERY INVESTED in the development of this fic, email me. I'll send you the link to the place I'm writing it, and you can watch me fuck around in real time.

None of you fuckers sign me up for spam. Although honestly, sorting my spam folder is extremely satisfying. ~~Great, now I've jinxed it.~~

efmoore2004@gmail.com.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is catintheunderground btw if you want to ask questions about my extensive humanstuck headcanons. and they are extensive I ain't shitting you. I even made a sketch of the first floor of Karkat's house so I would know where everything is when I wrote the scenes inside the house. Visualization is veeeeeery important to me, so I frequently do sketches of the characters as they appear in my work. Y'all comment if you want me to put it up on my Tumblr or something.


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